TAXI.com

MySpace was sold to an Ad Agency called Specific Media for just $35 million. Just six years ago it was sold to News Corp for $580 million. The new owners said it would focus on music (after getting rid of the CEO and laying off 1/2 the workforce).

Specific Media (http://www.specificmedia.com/) is an old, old advertising agency that has been in business for five years.

This was reported on a website owned by Dow Jones, a subsidiary of News Corp.

Pandora Radio has gone Public and has quit accepting new music for it's Genome Project. Investors gave them around $250,000,000 and they have never made a profit.

Zynga - the game maker that brought us FarmVille and such - raised $2 BILLION in new investor cash.

The most interesting thing about these sites is that they are just websites. They produce nothing, not even artistic content.

Just some items of interest to let you know that your feets gotta be quick.

Hook: In the market, as far as these valuations go, it's late 1999.
Ott

I note that Justin Timberlake is in the buying group. I assume this means the site will get a lot more exposure.
Ott

Ott
I heard that if it wasn't for your profile on there, they only would have gotten $34 Million!

Just razzing with ya,
Casey

No, no, Casey! You're absolutely right! They were "monetizing" my future income stream . . . Unfortunately for me, it was for the next several hundred years, and I don't get any of the present value.
Ott

Does this mean that Tom is no longer our friend?

For those who haven't been, lately, Myspace has been on a mission revamping the site, making it easier to use and de-bugging it, possibly in preparation for the sale. Most observers expect massive layoffs, but I think we'll see more intensive development, because the new owners didn't overpay. Myspace still has some of the best SEO on the 'net and something no other site will likely ever have; over forty million bands/artists/fans.










*edited to correct "four' in favor of "forty' million

markjsmith wrote:Does this mean that Tom is no longer our friend?

Just one more reason why you absolutely MUST have you're own website. Use social media to drive traffic, but having your own website (not a fanpage, not a MySpace page, not a RN page) is the mark of a professional who is serious about his/her/their business.

coachdebra wrote:Just one more reason why you absolutely MUST have you're own website. Use social media to drive traffic, but having your own website (not a fanpage, not a MySpace page, not a RN page) is the mark of a professional who is serious about his/her/their business.

Hey Debra
What's interesting is when myspace music pages worked well, I think more bands, musicians, songwriters, etc used their myspace page as their 'calling card' than a personal website. People would say, "give me your myspace page address". It seemed to be the industry standard.

I PREFERRED to give out my myspace page address than my personal website address. I still think they had the best single page music website made so far. It was simple-- some bio and a music player. That's what most viewers want to get to very quickly and myspace did that very well.

I'm not as convinced as you that everyone needs a personal website IF there is something good out there as was myspace in it's prime. I like RN for other reasons, but not as much for a "calling card". They layout isn't as attractive to me as even the default one was on myspace.

I'm glad to hear they will focus on the music aspect of the site in the next round. That's where they can still shine if they do things right.

Just some thoughts...
Casey