According to the Wall Street Journal News Corp. which bought MySpace.com for $580 Million in 2005, has just sold it to Specific Media, in a deal valuing the site between $30 million and $40 million, with News Corp. retaining a small stake.
According to the Journal, Specific Media helps marketers buy digital ads across the Web, online video, mobile and TV.
The company was founded in 1999 is based in Irvine, Calif and its owned by three brothers Tim, Chris and Russell Vanderhook.
MySpace.com just put out this press release:
“Specific Media, a digital media company, today announced it has acquired Myspace from News Corporation. ”
“As part of the agreement, News Corporation will take a minority equity stake in Specific Media.”
“Additional terms of the agreement are confidential and will not be disclosed.”
“Myspace is a recognized leader that has pioneered the social media space. The company has transformed the ways in which audiences discover, consume and engage with content online,” said Tim Vanderhook, Specific Media CEO. “There are many synergies between our companies as we are both focused on enhancing digital media experiences by fueling connections with relevance and interest. We look forward to combining our platforms to drive the next generation of digital innovation.”
“Specific Media is an innovative global interactive media company that enables advertisers to connect with consumers in meaningful, impactful and relevant ways. Founded in 1999 by brothers Tim, Chris and Russell Vanderhook, Specific Media is currently headquartered in Irvine, CA and operates offices around the world.
About Myspace
Myspace, Inc. is a leading social entertainment destination powered by the passions of fans. Aimed at a Gen Y audience, Myspace drives social interaction by providing a highly personalized experience around entertainment and connecting people to the music, celebrities, TV, movies, and games that they love. These entertainment experiences are available through multiple platforms, including online, mobile devices, and offline events.
Myspace is also the home of Myspace Music, which offers an ever-growing catalogue of freely streamable audio and video content to users and provides major, independent, and unsigned artists alike with the tools to reach new audiences. The company is headquartered in Beverly Hills, CA. http://www.myspace.com/pressroom/
About Specific Media
Specific Media is a digital media company driving viewership for content owners, engagement for brands and relevance for consumers. With capabilities spanning original programming, cross-channel distribution and addressable advertising, the company connects audiences, content and brands, adding meaning to each touch-point. As people discover new ways to consume content, Specific Media creates impactful media experiences no matter where they are.”
Worthless piece of name!!!
I would assume a lot of this (besides the fact that the site is losing all its members) is because of the debt that comes along with MySpace.
From the start, News Corp was clueless as what to do with MySpace. They allowed “wallpapered” pages to become unreadable, etc, etc. The average domainer/developer would have instituted better strategy. MySpace is presently a sleeping (catatonic?) giant and the Vanderhook brothers got a smoking deal.
That what happens when social media is run by old geezers who just know print media is the best.
@BullS
True.
Three years ago I represented the registrant of MySpace.co.uk, preventing the transfer to MySpace.com. It was a bigger deal then than it seems to be now!
Buyer got a good discount. 99% discount offer.
BullS makes a cogent and coherent point in my life time!
This reminds me of an Investment Strategy I’ve heard before.
Want to know how to make a small fortune?
Start with a large one.
For a corporation the size of News Corp. this is peanuts and a nice loss to claim come tax time. Unload your assets that have become a liability! Facebook totally dominates the game; it would take a great amount of effort for the new owners to surpass them.
Thanks…must be the new strain of marijuana….that all I can say.
MySpace dot com is good for some sort of storage business or toilet potty
a truly RIDICULOUS price for a social network that has 300 million users!!!
could SpecificMedia be a Facebook OR Google OR Apple OR Twitter OR Amazon OR Microsoft “trojan horse”? 🙂
just to remark, that, after years it was on sale, MySpace has been sold a few hours after the Google+ release …
do you think this might say something OR it’s only a “coincidence”?
Click the link.
The speech from that movie is now shown at various B Schools and is probably the single most salient movie speech, ever, on business philosophy.
Does anyone seriously see a ‘myspace renaissance’ on the horizon?
SM is all about being where everyone else already is, or where everyone else is heading. You’re either positioned right, or you’re dead. What ‘once was’ means absolutely nothing in that game.
If anything, Myspace was a case study on how to pick an old-media (another dead industry) corporate pocket with a new media enterprise..
The only real question here is whether the bones of the operation and residual user base are worth 40mm. Could be.
LS your quite right. All these SM are nothing but a stuffed up ICQ
yeah, they have bought a nice list of subscribers.
and with “social” that’s the biggest challenge- getting subscribers.
with the right sensibility (clean, uncluttered design, fast, simple, reliable, etc.) and technical know-how they could roll out something that’s better than facebook, easily. fb has so many flaws. and many are waiting for a better alternative.
news corp. had neither the sensibility nor the know-how. but they had the money. same guy who’s behind the demand media garbage made off like a bandit when myspace was sold to news corp.
know-how is in abundance. scripting language fanatics are everywhere. as are seo scammers. those are easy paths to follow.
but there’s a real scarcity of sensibility. the web is just full of imitators. which is why apple is so successful. they have design sensibility, both with hardware and with software interfaces.
chances are we’ll either see myspace start looking like a facebook clone (just window dressing) or they’ll do nothing with it and just use the subscriber list to bombard the kids with endless waves of ads, banking on the certain percentage who will respond. what is the likelihood of these guys choosing a different path that that of least resistance?
the potential for something innovative is there, they have a nice list of subscribers… if they have the right sensibility.
you forget today’s “cloud mania” … MySpace can be turned to an iTunes/iCloud/GoogleMusic/AmazonMusic competitor, in the right hands
Hi,
On the surface, it would appear that News corp took a big hit with the sale of Myspace in relation to what it purchased Myspace for and what it now sold it for.
But,
In reality, for many years Myspace was really in a league of its own, and in these may years of being in business, they collected a boatload of dollars in advertising.
It would be very interesting to see a complete balance sheet for just “Myspace” for all the years it was in business with News corp.
___
“Myspace is also the home of Myspace Music, which offers an ever-growing catalogue of freely streamable audio and video content to users and provides major, independent, and unsigned artists alike with the tools to reach new audiences.”
___
For the past couple years especially, this part of Myspace has been by far the most successful aspect of Myspace as a whole.
I think if I was the new owner, I would concentrate almost solely on developing this part of the business, as it has and will always have major ‘upside’s’.
As, Myspace’s already main built in demographics has to be in the 16 year old to say the 28 year old range…give or take.
Now with the the announcement of:
‘Google’s New Google+ Social Network’ today and the already established Social Networks of: Facebook, Twitter, linkedin etc…
The battle for Social Network king is going to heat up to ‘eye popping’ levels.
So, for the new ‘Myspace’ to try and compete with these companies on the same level, as Social Network that tries to appeal to many audiences…’being everything to everyone’…would seem to be a huge up hill battle at very the least.
In any case, it should be very interesting what they come up with.
Like anything else, only time will tell…. 😉
@David, @LSMorgan…spot on
Best,
‘D’
Interesting timing, last day financial year in Australia. Price wise you’d think if myspace were stripped back far enough (like what is being talked about with most staff going) then perhaps this is a pretty good price even though it will likely continue to shrink. Although if as one person mentioned this comes with a lot of debt then that could be a different situation entirely.
At say $35 million that is 1/200th of facebooks $70billion valuation. Amazing how far this company has sunk.
You see, this country is still run by old geezers. When they died,which is sooner than later,they will be replaced by the facebook generation which then marijuana,online gambling and gay will be legalized.
Medical records will be so open and incorporated via facebook.
The world will be so peaceful and all have the same agenda–live free and prosperous.
Pop star Justin Timberlake is part of group buying MySpace for $35m.
Justin Timberlake will play a major role in developing and creating innovation and creative direction strategies to make MySpace moving forward to “next big things” in digital social media.
Hi,
@RAYY.co Thanks for the new information!
That may lend some “cred” to my post above about:
___
“Myspace is also the home of Myspace Music, which offers an ever-growing catalogue of freely streamable audio and video content to users and provides major, independent, and unsigned artists alike with the tools to reach new audiences.”
___
“For the past couple years especially, this part of Myspace has been by far the most successful aspect of Myspace as a whole.
I think if I was the new owner, I would concentrate almost solely on developing this part of the business, as it has and will always have major ‘upside’s’.”
‘D”
@RAYY
this suggests a relaunch of MySpace as online music site
the BIG QUESTION on FaceAnswers: “can Google+ beat Facebook?” x.co/Y1y3
I smell a MySpace turnaround – just wait – solid people behind this effort.
Dan
There will be a .Music extension that they will also have to compete with if they adopt a music only strategy
UPDATE
Looks like the price was $35 Million
Justin is an investor in MySpace.com:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20075532-93/justin-timberlake-an-investor-in-myspace-buy/?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=News-DigitalMedia
He should have went for .music instead
yeah, i guess the focus will be music, not a more broad social network like fb.
if so, they don’t stand a chance against apple. the music industry is waiting to see if icloud will succeed or fail.
maybe that’s why news corp has dumped myspace. if myspace’s remaining appeal is as a music service, icloud will wipe them out if it succeeds. fb has crippled myspace. icloud would deliver the final blow.
if apple pulls this off this time (mobileme was a fail), if icloud becomes popular, they will have singlehandedly changed how copyright law is applied in practice. they could become a next generation copyright clearance center for music.
copyright law is dying, or at least changing irreversibly, imo.
this cloud stuff is insane.
anyone can carry around GB and soon TB’s in their pocket. that’s a lot of music! peer to peer is not dead it’s just waiting for an opportunity to rise again (when the music industry has given up on copyright lawsuits and realises it can’t win with the old system).
to think these “cloud” companies are the only digital distribution channel is nuts. but the music industry execs are still clueless, and the tech companies’ pitches are getting more and more convincing.
the internet is in its infancy. but the old copyright licensing schemes are entering their twilight.
I guess, that, the new owners will buy the MyMusic.com and (someday) the My.Music domains 🙂
I’ve some good ideas for a new MySpace
does anyone knows the Justin’s email? 🙂
“…Pop star Justin Timberlake is part of group buying MySpace for $35m…”
You can read more info in Sydney Morning Herald news:
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/justin-timberlake-part-of-group-buying-myspace-for-33m-20110630-1grnr.html
Hi,
@goopl.us
I have it: Justin @ INeverLikedYourMusic Dot MySpace
Sorry…It just had to be said 😉
Peace!
Dan
A joke about MySpace;
“Anthony Weiner admitted to sending inappropriate messages to several women via Twitter, text, email, and Facebook. I think the lesson here is that if you’re going to send explicit pictures of yourself, send them through MySpace, where no one will notice.” -Jimmy Kimmel
“…He should have went for .music instead…”
That’s right.
.Music is only $185000+
Then get MyMusic.music
Music.Timberlake
or JustinTimberlake.music
Smokin’ deal. The burn down value probably exceeds the deal valuation amount. Millions of loyal users, advertising server infrastructure in place, customer details and opt-ins, Alexa 88 = about 20million uniques, from USA alone. Im not saying its worth $560m but definitely a steal at $35m. If someone bright and preferably under the age of 60 actually ran the place they could pull billions.
Anyone know how many different people will be/or have applied for .music ?
Hi.
This is just a “guesstimate” of whats going to happen with this domain extension.
I would think there will be several hundred applications, maybe more.
But,
The bottom line is that I think it will come down to a just few large Music Labels, and that this will end up in an “auction”…for the “Exclusive Rights” to it.
Needless to say, the end price tag could be just more than a ‘little eye popping’.
Then the winner of the ‘auction’, then will use it to promote just the bands and groups under contact to them.
I guess if they had “Exclusive Rights” to it..they could also make, some huge deals, with a few selected company’s if they wanted to…and it made sense for them to do so.
This is how I see it ‘playing out’… but in reality, there are lot of different scenarios that may also come into play.
That is if I understand the process correctly… (if not…then ‘never mind’) 😉
“MHB”, can correct me if I am wrong, as he is the foremost expert on the subject…that I am aware of.
Peace!
‘D’
Dan
You are correct in that a music label like Warner just for example could be the high bidder at the end of the day and use .music just to promote their own artists.
There is noting to prevent an owner of a domain from keeping all of the subdomains to themselves and not allowing anyone from the outside to register domains, most of the brands will do this
Gazzip
No one has applied for .Music the application process does not open until January 12.
There are at least 2 companies that have already come out saying they are going to apply but MANY people are in stealth and are not going to say that applied even after they applied
Someone could buy out the domain of myspace and actually make it something useful. All the site has going for it is it’s name. Companies buying out pre made sites to comsume their revenue, appling no effort into making a site grow in any other way. Such a hollow and inhuman of running sites on the internet. Myspace is an excellent name for a site. Regardless of the sellout out of touch dipshits who ran it before, it can made into something great. Consider tumblr and deviantart, mash both of these together and you’d get something great. Though giving you the ability to be even better. Looking at them you can tell what works and weed out what doesn’t. With a name like myspace and two formulas that worked great you can definatly have a site be something worth using.