Viacom is planning to get into the social networking game and challenge MySpace

[mandy]

Viacom is planning to get into the social networking game, the company announced this week, with CEO Tom Freston telling attendees at an industry event in New York that the company has designs on a portal of its own to compete with the likes of News Corp.-owned MySpace.com, the personal Web page service that has become wildly popular among Internet users, especially teens. Viacom did not lay out exactly how it would replicate its rival's success with MySpace.com.

The company has reportedly met with a number of Internet social networking businesses, but so far it has released no details as to whether it will enter the market via partnerships or acquisitions...

"On the plus side with Viacom, they own MTV and VH1, and I would expect the co-marketing opportunities to be incredible,"...

full article: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/ZLC9C...ecom.xhtml

[bargainbloodhound]

I guess my question is...WHY does Viacom want to start a MySpace wannabee?  MySpace has 58 million users but its revenues last year were only $45 million.  Unless something changes dramatically it will be years before News Corp recoups its $560 million purchase price.  (The odds of something changing dramatically are slim to none since like many Web 2.0 companies MySpace is using the "advertising supported" revenue model which was proven to be not a viable business model during the dot com boom).