How Facebook is killing MySpace Once-mighty MySpace has weakened, and rival social-media Web site Facebook now has more users. But don't count out MySpace just yet. [Related content: Internet, media, News Corp., Google, New York Times] By Catherine Holahan MSN Money
For the past year, News Corp.'s (NWS, news, msgs) flagship Internet property has watched its fortunes steadily fade. Not long ago, MySpace was the dominant player in the online social-media space, but rivals have been stealing away users. Just two months ago the site lost its title as the world's largest social-networking Web site to rival Facebook. MySpace also experienced a painful loss of revenue in the most recent quarter, and analysts expect more bad news. At this rate, the "place for friends" could soon find itself virtually friendless and barren. "They are in a really deep hole right now," said Debra Aho Williamson, a senior analyst at eMarketer, an online advertising research firm. "It wasn't a good quarter for MySpace, and what you have seen since then is a snowball effect." In the past year, Facebook's U.S. audience has grown 97%, to 70.28 million users, while MySpace's U.S. traffic has declined nearly 5%, to 70.24 million users, according to measurement company comScore. (Microsoft, the publisher of MSN Money, owns a small share of Facebook.) MySpace brought many of its troubles on itself by focusing too much on revenue and alienating its audience. But, though MySpace's decisions may have led users to leave, Facebook made it easy for them to jump ship. In an interview with TheStreet.com, published this month, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch admitted that he shared some of the blame for letting the site get out of control. "The business sort of grew out of control and really out of size," said Murdoch. "I blame myself, and it had to be brought back in size." FONTE: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Extra/How-Facebook-is%20killing-MySpace.aspx _______________________________________________ Instruções para desiscrever-se por conta própria: http://listas.ibict.br/cgi-bin/mailman/options/bib_virtual Bib_virtual mailing list [email protected] http://listas.ibict.br/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/bib_virtual
