Inside MySpace: The Story

By David F. Carr  |  Posted 2007-01-16 Email Print this article Print
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Booming traffic demands put a constant stress on the social network's computing infrastructure. Here's how it copes.

title=MySpace Base Case}

MySpace Base Case
Headquarters: Fox Interactive Media (parent company), 407 N. Maple Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210
Phone: (310) 969-7200
Business: MySpace is a "next generation portal" built around a social networking Web site that allows members to meet, and stay connected with, other members, as well as their favorite bands and celebrities.
Chief Technology Officer: Aber Whitcomb
Financials in 2006: Estimated revenue of $200 million.

BASELINE GOALS:
  • Double MySpace.com advertising rates, which in 2006 were typically a little more than 10 cents per 1,000 impressions.
  • Generate revenue of at least $400 million from MySpace—out of $500 million expected from News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media unit—in this fiscal year.
  • Secure revenue of $900 million over the next three years from a search advertising deal with Google.

    • <12345678910
     
     
     
     
    David F. Carr David F. Carr is the Technology Editor for Baseline Magazine, a Ziff Davis publication focused on information technology and its management, with an emphasis on measurable, bottom-line results. He wrote two of Baseline's cover stories focused on the role of technology in disaster recovery, one focused on the response to the tsunami in Indonesia and another on the City of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.David has been the author or co-author of many Baseline Case Dissections on corporate technology successes and failures (such as the role of Kmart's inept supply chain implementation in its decline versus Wal-Mart or the successful use of technology to create new market opportunities for office furniture maker Herman Miller). He has also written about the FAA's halting attempts to modernize air traffic control, and in 2003 he traveled to Sierra Leone and Liberia to report on the role of technology in United Nations peacekeeping.David joined Baseline prior to the launch of the magazine in 2001 and helped define popular elements of the magazine such as Gotcha!, which offers cautionary tales about technology pitfalls and how to avoid them.
     
     
     
     
     
    Manage your Newsletters: Login   Register My Newsletters