It looks as though the long, torrid saga of News Corp and MySpace may finally be coming to an end. News Corp COO Chase Carey has given a long-overdue indication that they are looking to cut-and-run from the flagging social network, telling analysts –
“With a new structure in place, now is the right time to consider strategic options for this business. The new MySpace has been very well received by the market and we have some very encouraging metrics. But the plan to allow MySpace to reach it’s full potential may be best achieved under a new owner.”
Carey was then awarded the Nobel Prize for “most diplomatic wording of a statement, ever”.
News Corp purchased MySpace is 2005 $580million. At the time, and for a short while after, MySpace was the most popular social network around. Unfortunately Facebook took first place about a year later and hasn’t looked back since. Visitor numbers have been steadily dropping since then, and have really started to nosedive since MySpace rebranded itself in October last year. We’re not sure what “encouraging metrics” Carey is looking at, but all the available evidence points to the site losing around 25% of its visitors in just the last three months.
Last November MySpace was forced to suffer its biggest indignity to date – turning to Facebook for help retaining traffic. Earlier this month the site also trimmed its staff down by almost half, now it would appear that was a housekeeping exercise in preparation for a possible sale.
Carey talked up the site’s worth – it is still one of the most visited sites in the US after all, and has a potentially lucrative database of around 60million individuals (although how up-to-date those details are is questionable, given the level to which the site has been abandoned) –
“The interest to date has ranged from A to Z – from industry players, financial players, foreign to domestic. And that’s without really being out there – it’s incoming, we’re not soliciting anything at this point.”
Carey also made it clear that a compete buyout isn’t the only option for MySpace – they’d also accept a re-investment from a third-party, or a partial management buyout. We’re assuming their preferred solution is one that doesn’t involve them losing hundreds of millions of dollars every quarter, after all, they have another digital basket-case to look after now.
Read Carey’s full comments at PaidContent.org
