Google Signs $900m MySpace Deal 213
deadmantyping writes "Google has signed a $900m deal with Fox to provide search capabilities for Fox sites, the most noteworthy of which is MySpace. This deal does not include FoxSports.com, which already has a deal with MSN. Google claims that 'MySpace was an important site to be involved with given its rapid popularity growth.' Google also signed a deal with MTV earlier in the week."
Google paid Fox? (Score:4, Interesting)
improving myspace (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Question (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, and lets see, from a business stand point, this is probably a good move my Google. granted, $900M is a ton of money, but with myspace generating over 27.4 billion page views per month (article here [techcrunch.com]), that's a huge income stream for Google. Even if only 1% of those people even click on a link, which is probably an underestimate, thats 274 million ad clicks per month. At a minimum of $0.01/click, that's $2.74M. Also, don't forget that Google does Cost Per Impressions, or per 1000 ad views. Lets assume you use minimums, as I have throughout this post, and you will see that Google generates another $6.85M/ad displayed. Since Google usually puts up about 5 ads per search, you can assume that they are making $34.25M/month at a minimum. Total, they have a revenue of appoximately $37M/month, all at minimums. Now, this doesn't take into account the fact that most advertisers pay more than the minimums since Google uses cost competitive advertising. However, at minimums, it only takes Google a little over 24 months to recover their costs and start making money. Seems pretty smart to me!
Then again, what do I know!
Re:crazy, google, myspace (Score:2, Interesting)
"[AOL] had at one time a customer base that reached over 30 million subscribers" - from aol wikipedia page
"MySpace currently reports just over 99 million members, with 500,000 new members each week." - from myspace wikipedia page
Two different services that can be used relatively easily to meet people, or chat, or for show and tell or whatever. If you've ever logged into aol since... well, probably since qlink; you would be greeted with some wonderful advertisement in which you could purchase an item by clicking on it. It's a modal window so you have to actually click 'No thanks.' to get rid of it. The rate of users being accosted by advertisments would logically increase as advertising to generate revenue increases.
When you go to myspace(the www in general anymore), you get soemthing similar; crazy interactive flash advertisements promising a free ipod or a fantastic mortgage rate. Some of them let you beat famous people with sausages and some make loud annoying sounds unexpectedly on a mouseover. Those are embedded in the page.
So people get used to these things and know where not to click, but the advertisement is still there. The president is still jumping around in boxing gloves just itching to get you that ipod. Or maybe some mice are running around on a tabletop that would like to prevent you from flicking the bean into the dixie cup.
Even if you aren't sucked into the adds you see them.
People love MySpace and AOL. And many that hate them still use them anyway.
You can't pry AOL or MySpace from their cold dead hands. (AOL not so much these days it seems)
With this kind of exposure there is huge advertising/sales potential and huge data mining potential.
Re:Myspace taking over...... (Score:5, Interesting)
I still don't see the attraction of hosting on Myspace. It costs, what, 5 bucks to rent a box nowadays? And you have total control of your content, not what News Coporation deems is appropriate.
All Myspace is a virtual gym class from high school. A place to socialize and learn people skills (albiet online) before heading off to a work environment. In that regard, it's a success -- but by those standards any social networking site that gets large enough is a success. In every other instance (design, marketing, etc.) it's a failure.
Re:Google paid Fox? (Score:3, Interesting)
Easy way to save $900 milltion (Score:2, Interesting)
Strings Attached (Score:2, Interesting)
"The deal will see Google pay Fox at least $900m (£472m), provided certain web traffic targets are met."
It makes absolutely no difference if MySpace becomes unpopular, because then Fox doesn't get paid. The only risk Google is taking is if people don't click the ads, but if they simply stop going, there's no problem.