A recent column by Paul La Monica on CNN.com blows holes in the hype surrounding MySpace.
You know, it drives me a little nuts when someone like Mr. La Monica takes a slice of monumental societal change, and tries to apply the rationality of the present to it. If financial analysts were around when the first fish dragged themselves out of the primordial ocean and started crawling on land, they'd downgrade its prospects because it couldn't swim as well as the other fish.
In the big picture, MySpace isn't about revenue. It's about a new generation redefining community. It's about changing the rules of society, and creating a groundswell shift that will in turn realign everything. The author of the column says that MySpace's share of the search market is meager, so it's monetization opportunities are negligible compared to Google. Umm..reality check here...MySpace isn't a search engine. The fact that it has any search share at all is amazing!
Look..search engines didn't figure out how to monetize the model for years. What lead to that eventual success? It was a place people went to online. Now granted, they went with a specific intent, which turned out to be easy for marketers to capitalize on...but they had the eyeballs in the first place. Perhaps the author should remember that Google didn't monetize that traffic til 2000/2001, and it's only been in the last 2 years that it's been the tremendous success that everyone seems to use as a yardstick. But Google has been around since 1998. And at that time, there were analysts like Paul La Monica who were saying don't believe the hype. Google was a walking fish, and it's only in hindsight that we realize how significant it was.
If financial analysts could readjust their sights beyond the next quarter, they might be able to spot another Google before it starts running!