News Corp in talks with Yahoo, MS for ads on MySpace:report

Myspace facing fall in web traffic

PTI | July 7, 2010



Media conglomerate News Corp is in talks with Microsoft and Yahoo for an advertising deal with its group firm MySpace, as an existing contract with Google expires in August, a media report said.

Attributing to people familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal said, "News Corp is in discussions with Google Inc, Microsoft Corp and Yahoo Inc about replacing MySpace's crucial search-advertising partnership with Google, which expires next month."

Under the existing deal, Google had agreed to make up to USD 900 million in guaranteed payments for the right to sell small ads as users surf and tap out searches on My Space.com and on a handful of smaller News Corp websites.

However, MySpace has fallen short of web traffic recently and other milestones laid out in the Google contract, which will expire at the end of August.

The people familiar to the matter also said that News Corp has been been discussing new, narrower advertising deals with Google and other companies in the past few weeks.

Moreover, the new deal is expected to be for significantly less money compared to before and this would be a further financial challenge for MySpace, which has seen ad revenues slip, the WSJ report added.

The MySpace website is also in the midst of a remodeling to stand apart from Facebook, which has surpassed it as the dominant social networking site.

MySpace attracted 109 million unique world-wide visitors in May, down nearly 13 per cent from the same month last year, according to comScore Inc.

MySpace has also cut about 30 per cent of its work force and News Corp took a USD 450 million hit last year to write down the value of MySpace and other digital businesses.

 

Comments

 

Other News

AI: Code, Control, Conquer

India today stands at a critical juncture in the area of artificial intelligence. While the country is among the fastest adopters of AI in the world, it remains heavily reliant on technologies developed elsewhere. This paradox, experts warn, cannot persist if India seeks technological sovereignty.

RBI pauses to assess inflation risks, policy transmission

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has begun the new fiscal year with a calibrated pause, keeping the repo rate unchanged at 5.25 per cent in its April Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting. The decision, taken unanimously, reflects a shift from aggressive policy action to cautious observation after a signi

New pathways for tourism growth

Traditionally, India’s tourism policy has been based on three main components: the number of visitors, building tourist attractions and providing facilities for tourists. Due to the increase in climate-related issues and environmental destruction that occurred over previous years, policymakers have b

Is the US a superpower anymore?

On April 8, hours after warning that “a whole civilisation will die tonight,” US president Donald Trump, exhibiting his unique style of retreating from high-voltage brinkmanship, announced that he agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran. The weekend talks in Islamabad have failed and the futur

Machines communicate, humans connect

There is a moment every event professional knows—the kind that arrives without warning, usually an hour before the curtain rises. Months of meticulous planning are in place. And then comes the call: “We’ll also need a projector. For the slides.”   No email

Why India is entering a ‘stagflation lite’ phase

India’s macroeconomic narrative is quietly shifting—from a rare “Goldilocks” equilibrium of stable growth and contained inflation to a more fragile phase where external shocks are beginning to dominate domestic policy outcomes. The numbers still look reassuring at first glance: GDP


Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter