The MySpace Economy: Popular Site Creates New Opportunities for Small Businesses

[mandy]

Tens of millions of people show up regularly at MySpace, News Corp.'s suddenly popular virtual hangout. That's good news for News Corp. boss Rupert Murdoch, who raised eyebrows by shelling out $580 million for the Web site last summer. But it's also an opportunity for ambitious entrepreneurs who have figured out how to make money by catering to the site's hordes of visitors.

Like mega-sites eBay and Google before it, MySpace is creating its own economic ecosystem, populated by small businesses that do everything from helping users decorate their profiles to creating tools that let advertisers target MySpace users...

full article: http://www.forbes.com/home/digitalentert...space.html

[Kristijntje]

A related article:

MySpace is beginning to create its own ecosystem of third-party companies that are developing features and applications for the giant digital community, according to a new report from analyst Richard Greenfield of Pali Research. He says the idea is to encourage other companies to use their creativity and expertise to come up with things for MySpace users that MySpace itself hasn't. That could be anything from letting people add to their MySpace home pages from a mobile phone or creating a slide show of their favorite MySpace photos...

MySpace is encouraging the development of its nascent ecosystem. "MySpace has always seen itself as a next-generation portal. There are enormous opportunities to develop in and around MySpace...

full article: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/c...833338.htm