has posted profit up 17 over this period

Purchased by NewsCorp. in 2005 for $ 580 million, MySpace is today one of the few reasons for satisfaction of Rupert Murdoch. His media empire that controls including 20th Century Fox, the BSkyB satellite television bouquet, the "Time" in London or even the Wall Street Journal just announced quarterly profit fall by 30 due to the advertising slowdown ("Les Echos" from November 10).

Almost only to take advantage of this game, Fox Interactive Media (FIM), the new media of News Corp., has, posted profit up 17 over this period. Mainly through MySpace, the famous community network on the Internet, which is 90 of the activity of FIM.

MySpace last June had 115 million unique visitors, according to the Comscore Institute. And advertising revenues in the United States should $ 755 million in 2008, view the specialized site eMarketer. Figures that make it the first community in the world, even if site Facebook (115 million visitors also to 265 million of advertising revenues according to the same indicators) him somewhat stole the star in recent months.

Growth potential

For its CEO, Chris DeWolfe, MySpace retains a strong growth potential: "advertising revenues continue to grow and I'm optimistic for the future, even if naturally should be cautious in the current context", he says in an interview with the "echo" in San Francisco.

The site recently launched time three initiatives to strengthen its positions, at the time where the slowdown in advertising spending also threatens the Web. Since this week, MySpace members can organize and illustrate their personal pages more easily, and to provide spaces to access private or public as Facebook. Moreover, the MyAds service allows for a month small advertisers to deploy ultra-targeted advertising banners for a budget of 25 to $ 10,000. More than 7,000 small advertisers have already subscribed. MySpace seeks relays for growth in the case where the three-year contract signed in 2006 with Google sponsored links (300 million dollars of income per year) would not be renewed. Finally, MySpace Music, the discovery and purchase of online music service created in joint-venture with the four majors (Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI), allowed MySpace to bring large sponsors such as Toyota, McDonald's, Sony Pictures and State Farm.

Chris DeWolfe, the original mission of MySpace, which was to help young music groups to find their audience and music fans to discover new talent, "is linchpin of what we are." And the co-founder of the network that "music is an excellent way for our members to customize their pages, and for us to improve the loyalty of the visitors.

Promotional tool

Record companies regularly use MySpace to promote their artists (the English group Oasis has recently implemented free listening the entirety of his latest album on MySpace Music). And the subsidiary of Fox Interactive seeks to diversify its sources of revenue by selling online albums, concert tickets and products in partnership with Amazon.

According to Chris DeWolfe, "360-degree model represents the future potential of the music industry to the decline of CD sales". Invited last week at the Web 2.0 Summit Conference, he even raised the possibility of market one day a MySpace digital player that would compete with the famous Apple's iPod.