Posts tagged myspace

When Developers Attack?

When Google launched Search Plus Your World it integrated social search into its results.

The big problem, as critics pointed out, was that social meant Google+ posts from your circles of friends and acquaintances. This diminished the integrity of search results as posts on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks that might be much more relevant to the original query were ignored.

Google’s response was that Twitter and Facebook don’t give the search engine access to their data so they moved forward with what they could do, namely include Google+ results.

But last weekend developers from Facebook, Twitter and Myspace got together for a hackathon to demonstrate that Google’s excuse is just that, an excuse that isn’t really true. In doing so, they created a site called Focus on the User that includes bookmarklets for Safari, Chrome and Firefox that expands Google search to include other social networks.

The video above gives background to all this and shows how its done.

ZDNet explains things further:

Over the weekend, Blake Ross, Facebook’s product director and co-founder of Firefox, worked with Facebook engineers Tom Occhino and Marshall Roch to demonstrate how evil Google’s newly launched Search plus Your World (SPYW) feature really is, and created a “proof of concept” showing how it should really work. His team got some help from Twitter engineers, Myspace engineers, and consulted other social networks as well to really make sure the message hits home: SPYW should surface results from all social networks, not just Google+.

By leveraging Google’s own algorithms, the group built a bookmarklet called “don’t be evil” (a jab at Google’s informal motto) and released it on a new website named Focus on the User…

…So, how does it work? If Google’s search engine decides that it’s relevant to surface a Google+ page in response to a query where Google+ content is hardcoded, the tool searches Google for the name of the Google+ page and identifies the social profiles within the first ten pages of Google’s search results (top 100 results). The ones Google ranks highest, regardless of what social network they are from, replace the previous results that would only be from Google+.

To be clear: the tool not only reorders the search engine results, but also the results of the promotional Google+ boxes on the right side of the results, as well as the autocomplete results that feature Google+ accounts when you type into the search box. In Google language these three are known as: People & Pages results, Google+ Sitelinks, and Google+ Suggestions In Autocomplete.

Focus on the User can be found here. The “Don’t be Evil” Bookmarklet is available on the site’s home page.

How social music streaming sites might kill illegal downloading before Congress does. 

columnfivemedia.com

GigaOm’s Matthew Ingram writes about Tumblr’s explosive growth and notes that there are two key sets of users that have been coming on board the last number of months: teens and publishers.  He wonders though whether Tumblr will be the next Facebook or MySpace: All of this growth is wonderful for Tumblr, which was started by David Karp four years ago, when he was just 20 years old — but the big unanswered question is whether the network can actually bring in revenue to match that growth. Everyone wants to be the next Facebook, which many early observers doubted would ever find a way to make money and now brings in revenues estimated at $2 billion. But MySpace also grew to massive levels, with more than 76 million users at its peak, and was bought by News Corp. for $580 million, only to rapidly decline after it failed to figure out how to make money. While comparisons are nice, we think it’s a bit apples and robots. Yes, Tumblr eventually needs to find a sustainable business model. But instead of looking to FB and MySpace, let’s watch Tumblr be the first Tumblr. Image: Gabrie Coletti via Flickr/Creative Commons.

GigaOm’s Matthew Ingram writes about Tumblr’s explosive growth and notes that there are two key sets of users that have been coming on board the last number of months: teens and publishers. 

He wonders though whether Tumblr will be the next Facebook or MySpace:

All of this growth is wonderful for Tumblr, which was started by David Karp four years ago, when he was just 20 years old — but the big unanswered question is whether the network can actually bring in revenue to match that growth. Everyone wants to be the next Facebook, which many early observers doubted would ever find a way to make money and now brings in revenues estimated at $2 billion. But MySpace also grew to massive levels, with more than 76 million users at its peak, and was bought by News Corp. for $580 million, only to rapidly decline after it failed to figure out how to make money.

While comparisons are nice, we think it’s a bit apples and robots. Yes, Tumblr eventually needs to find a sustainable business model. But instead of looking to FB and MySpace, let’s watch Tumblr be the first Tumblr.

Image: Gabrie Coletti via Flickr/Creative Commons.

News Corp. is about to sell Myspace for $20 million-$30 million, Kara Swisher at All Things D reports.

The groups vying for the remains of Myspace are Golden Gate Capital, a PE firm with $9 billion under management, and Specific Media, an ad network.

News Corp.’s fiscal year ends this Thursday, so it’s looking to wrap up the sale before the end of the fiscal year, so it can get Myspace off the books for 2012.

This is quite the come down for Myspace. News Corp paid $580 million for Myspace in 2005. When it started selling Myspace this year, it was looking for $100 million.

Jay Yarrow, Myspace Is About To Be Sold For $30 Million

Wow. Sam Wick, SVP Strategy at MySpace, was called away last night after the LA Future Of Work talk he participated in. I bet it had something to do with this deal.

A drop from $580M, to way below the $100M being shopped. I wonder what the buyers think they can do with it?

(via stoweboyd)

Business Insider

A Pew Internet report released last week says that 92 percent of US Internet users are on Facebook. It also has some interesting facts about MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter. Via SocialTimes: LinkedIn has more users than Twitter, 18 percent and 13 percent, which I find surprising. However, Twitter users, like Facebook users, are more involved with their networking, tweeting. It’s really comparing apples to oranges because it appears to be two different types of users. Only 6 percent of LinkedIn users visit the social network daily, whereas Twitter users are routinely at the platform tweeting away. LinkedIn users are the best educated — 37 percent have a bachelor’s degree and 38 percent a graduate degree, whereas 21 percent and 18 percent for Twitter and 20 percent and 15 percent for Facebook. So, I am definitely a LinkedIn users by far. What about good old MySpace? It is seeing the end of the journey with 29 percent of those surveyed are users. Of those users, only 7 percent actually visit it every day. Pew reports “MySpace users are more likely to be open to opposing points of view.” Facebook users are friendlier and like to hang with like-minded folks. 

A Pew Internet report released last week says that 92 percent of US Internet users are on Facebook. It also has some interesting facts about MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Via SocialTimes:

LinkedIn has more users than Twitter, 18 percent and 13 percent, which I find surprising. However, Twitter users, like Facebook users, are more involved with their networking, tweeting. It’s really comparing apples to oranges because it appears to be two different types of users. Only 6 percent of LinkedIn users visit the social network daily, whereas Twitter users are routinely at the platform tweeting away.

LinkedIn users are the best educated — 37 percent have a bachelor’s degree and 38 percent a graduate degree, whereas 21 percent and 18 percent for Twitter and 20 percent and 15 percent for Facebook. So, I am definitely a LinkedIn users by far.

What about good old MySpace? It is seeing the end of the journey with 29 percent of those surveyed are users. Of those users, only 7 percent actually visit it every day. Pew reports “MySpace users are more likely to be open to opposing points of view.” Facebook users are friendlier and like to hang with like-minded folks. 

News Corp. declared it was ready to sell MySpace in an earnings call in February. At that time, in spite of significant layoffs and a massive redesign, the company “recorded a $275 million pre-tax charge for the impairment of goodwill related to the Digital Media Group and an organizational restructuring at MySpace.” —Via Mashable myspace bidding begins

News Corp. declared it was ready to sell MySpace in an earnings call in February. At that time, in spite of significant layoffs and a massive redesign, the company “recorded a $275 million pre-tax charge for the impairment of goodwill related to the Digital Media Group and an organizational restructuring at MySpace.”

—Via Mashable myspace bidding begins


Mashable