MySpace To Focus On Gaming
In light of the growing popularity of Facebook, Jonathan Miller, digital head of News Corp’s MySpace discussed the option for the social network to be transformed into more of an online gaming platform.
MySpace has been running for six years, and it has been losing numbers faster than ever before due to the growth of Facebook and Twitter.
In recent months, Facebook’s population has jumped ahead of MySpace’s with 200 million active accounts.
ComScore estimates that Facebook beat MySpace’s top number of 76.3 million unique visitors in the US last month, which was set in October 2008.
MySpace has tried other outlets of entertainment, including video, but it cannot compete with Internet mainstays such as Google’s YouTube and Hulu.
"MySpace is and will be more in the future a gaming platform, a space for people to meet and play games," Miller said during the Fortune Brainstorm: TECH conference in Pasadena, Calif.
MySpace already hosts a group of games, such as Scrabble, poker, or chess, but Miller said videogames provide News Corp as well as MySpace with the chance to make the social network more relevant again.
"None of the traditional media conglomerates are also significant video game players, so to speak, and I think that that’s the missing piece of the equation, particularly when you see how much time is spent playing games online," Miller said.
Miller also discussed News Corp chief executive Rupert Murdoch’s recent comments that he would like MySpace to become an “entertainment portal.”
"You must focus, and in our case we are focusing on music, games, video, things like that," Miller said.
"If you look at the big activities online, games right now is number three," he said. "Communications, search, games. So it’s clearly going to be a major focus."
Murdoch’s company purchased the social network for $580 million in 2005.
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