MySpace: Social Network, or Online Portal? That is the Question

10/17/2008

Officially MySpace can be called the largest social network in the world. It has more than 122 million members, a little more than a third of the U.S. population. However, that’s apparently not good enough. MySpace wants to be king of all social networking. Here’s how it’s going about getting that title.

To digress a bit, many industry insiders question how effectively social media can be monetized. MySpace execs see the very term “social network” as limiting and confining.

Chris DeWolfe, MySpace’s CEO and co-founder, said in a recent eMarketer article that “From the very beginning, we’ve always said that we were a next-generation portal and that MySpace was all about people connecting over shared interests.”

What this means is that the company sees itself as more than a social network, and more of a starting point of a “next generation portal.”

Now that more and more companies are specifically setting aside larger budgets for online marketing, it’s critical that social networking sites like MySpace learn how to capitalize on some of these ad dollars. And, the money is not flowing into “social networks.” It’s flowing into the search and display ads of large Internet portals.

While this may seem like a play on words to some, the following comment by eMarketer’s senior analyst, Debra Aho Williamson, highlights how important the distinction is. She says, “By positioning itself as a portal, MySpace can potentially gain a larger share of online ad dollars.”

And, that’s why “MySpace: Social Network, or Online Portal?” is an important question.

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