MySpace is on the hook for a successful takeover of Spotify remains to wait

The cloud-hunting network Note: MySpace, once a social junction, is now in crisis, and how to transform from "extensive" to "fine-specialized" is the key to MySpace's self-help. Sean Percival, a former online sales executive at MySpace, has made a detailed analysis of its history. From the beginning of the company's pioneering journey through the waves so far, MySpace has been accompanied by enemies, all the way. Facebook,google The internet giants learn from each other.

Sean Percival, the former vice president for MySpace Online marketing, racked his brains for the company's troubles, but Percival at Spotify. "Spotify is never going to be so kind as to sell it to us ..." he said.

MySpace points out that they know they will lose to Facebook and even have a sense of what they are going to get in the big time.

Sean Percival has been a partner in the Silicon Valley seed accelerator startups company in 2015, but he served as MySpace's vice president for online marketing from 2009 to 2011. His job-hopping has been shaped to cede the Crown of social networking to Facebook.

At the by Larm meeting in Oslo (Norwegian capital): by Larm is a music festival and conference held regularly every year since 1998 in various locations in Norway, Percival is speaking in the manner of an in-house insider. He points to the bottleneck that MySpace is now experiencing: the MySpace site is now as messy as a huge Italian dough, and there is policy corruption in corporate News Corp's attempt to buy music streaming services Spotify.

His speech is aimed at letting startups learn the lessons of MySpace's decline, which is similar to some of the internet giants, such as Facebook, who are also trying to avoid being as prosperous as MySpace.

Early in the development of MySpace: Wrong from the start

"In fact, MySpace can't be said to be a company in the real sense, it's actually just a small part of an online marketing company, engaged in some of the early electric business: selling some cheap stuff like diet pills, small, remote-controlled helicopters," Percival said. "He attributed the birth of MySpace to the Rage social networking service Friendster that emerged in 2003. (Cloud Hunter: Friendster is one of the world's largest social networking sites, founded in 2002, earlier than other well-known social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, but soon lost its edge in the United States.) )

"They found the Friendster and then felt: ' Wow, everyone is obsessed with this site, we can try to imitate it." What MySpace wants to do is to build their own social networks so they can advertise their ads and sell their annoying products to users. This is the original idea that MySpace was not so big when it was founded. "MySpace was the forerunner of what is now thought to be the marketing of influence," Percival earlier said. Percival said they found that almost all the sexy babes in Friendster were kicked out of the social networking site Friendster. You may remember supermodel Tila Tequila (tila), who is now the top-ranked sexy queen on MySpace, but she was also a loyal user of Friendster.

Friendster because their images are so sexy and hot that they expel them from the site, but MySpace throws an olive branch on them, and MySpace says: "We don't care!" We come from the prosperous Los Angeles, sexy is the impetus our country economy development the infinite impetus! We warmly welcome your entry! So Tila Tequila happily settled in MySpace.

But Percival says it is important for MySpace to attract users such as bands, photographers, and creators, as many other users are interested in everything about them. Because they are hot and fashionable, we follow them enthusiastically, and especially the general public like us will pay attention to these people who itch.

This motivates Percival to create a promotional page that helps brands create their own web pages on MySpace and to expand their network of contacts. Although MySpace has tried to charge for such services, he has had to terminate the business since it received a so-called legal statement from the company's bluff.

News Corp's blood is invading it.

Percival didn't join MySpace until several years later, but at the same time he kept a wait-and-see attitude while MySpace grew up. In 2005, MySpace was bought by News Corp for $580 million, which still has a huge impact on his 2009 membership of the online marketing VP.

In the heart of Percival "News Corp is a monster-like organization that can be amazed by the sheer size of its share of the industry that cannot be overlooked." Tens of thousands of corporate assets and countless users. I remember the time when they said, ' We're not going to use our Organization's huge destruction to disrupt anything, we're just going to run the "You're special," and stick to it. ' Percival that such claims imply a lot of overtones in the industry, but more and more recent technology acquisitions, such as Facebook's takeover of Instagram and WhatsApp, prove that once News Corp breaks its promise, There will be countless acquirers vying to emulate its bad example.

"The reality is that, over time, company-related policies will emerge, with a large number of lawyers, accountants emerging and, of course, a lot of other new things," Percival said. Just like to stop a fast-moving, nimble sports car, News Corp they're slowing down.

"The presence of these people is a huge challenge for me, because when I just want to do some very basic things, there will always be someone in my ear like a mosquito buzzing to remind me that" of course, but we let it through the normal legal procedures. " Percival says, "News Corp has 40 to 50 working lawyers, but it doesn't include nearly 800,000 dollars a month spent on outside lawyers." ”

"We were so embattled that the Justice Department had recently targeted us because of what they thought was bad-pedophilia!" The strange information appeared on MySpace's website, and despite the recent attacks on MySpace, we decided to do our best to counterattack.

What is the result of the counterattack? "Contrary to what it wants to stick to, it's becoming more like a big company," Percival said. Politics, corruption and all other terrible things are common problems with big companies that soak up the corporate system sooner or later.

MySpace has already foreseen its big time.

Until 2009, MySpace could still be in the top spot on the Web site's traffic. But the pace at which Facebook is growing can throw MySpace off several docks, and, according to Percival, the company is riddled with negative work when he enters MySpace.

"I always remember when I first attended the meeting they introduced me to the team," Percival said. Come to think I really opened a lot of people sad meeting, everyone just sit silently in the hearts of confused unceasingly. But that was the most heartbreaking and embarrassing meeting I've ever had. ”

"I would like to cite an example, imagine you are a half a half salary of basketball coach, and my admission will make you feel really behind a big cut." Their minds have long been eroded by the bureaucracy of the company. At that time they foresaw that they would lose to Facebook and even smell the message of their own big time. ”

One of the main reasons for MySpace's decline, Percival, is that its business is extremely bloated. It extends its tentacles to celebrities, fashion, sports and so on, and even books are not spared. "I can tell you that it's embarrassing that people who are usually passionate about reading online aren't happy to discuss it on MySpace," he said. Even John Grisham's new book Grisham. MySpace wants to expand its business to a variety of areas, which, in my view, are a major blunder in their decline. ”

Facebook, by contrast, has not made such a mistake, and Facebook has learned from MySpace that it prefers to do fine and do more than a broad. But MySpace is the latter, and in fact we are just so-so in many areas.

Percival points out that, with internationalization and the popularity of smartphones, even in the heyday of MySpace (when it attracts 100 million of registered users a month), its users are only bucket compared to the number of Facebook users who have been in their 2014 years.

It is undeniable, however, that MySpace has made a real effort to expand its international business, and it may seek to attract customers in more countries. Percival that "in fact, this is just a lot of money in the organization to continue to organize the operation of the team, and constantly for the acquisition of legitimate music copyright and some trivial, no practical results." ”

"I'm pretty sure that almost every market is losing money, except in Mexico, because Facebook doesn't think it's necessary to expand the international market so quickly, it's a matter of water to nature." ”

MySpace is now as messy as a huge Italian dough.

Percival points out that MySpace has also spent a lot of money on building its own content distribution network (CDN). Other similar sites are starting to use AWS.

"MySpace spends a lot of money on investment, and I don't even know how much the total loss is, but I think it must be hundreds of billions of dollars," he said. Fortunately News Corp is a big tyrants and plenty of money, it can afford to bear this loss. Before again using ' chaos ' to describe MySpace, Percival that way.

MySpace is now as messy as a huge Italian dough. You can use the three diagrams we edited on the site, like you see seven scrolling pages on a computer screen, and it flashes in front of your eyes ... This makes our site very inflexible in shape or form.

Percival pointed out that the last nail nailed to the lid of the MySpace coffin came from a earnings call from News Corp's president Rupert Murdoch. He asked MySpace to create 1 billion dollars of revenue this year.

"At that time, however, our annual earnings remained between 50 million dollars and 100 million dollars." Only Murdoch asked us to achieve one-tenth of the target. Percival said that although Mr Murdoch had given instructions, it was not until I received this directive that many executives had not heard of the request. So everyone is rushing to get to that goal. "The boss says we should create 1 billion dollars in revenue, so we think it does."

"That's why we came up with MySpace books, and it's not that users need MySpace to explore the idea of sharing a book, but just because someone is willing to sponsor it, HarperCollins (Harper's Press) is willing to develop MySpace The books project was invested with roughly 250,000 dollars to 500,000 dollars. Things like this have been going on all the time. ”

Percival remembers launching an ad-punch the Monkey that made her infamous. The ad will invite users to click on the beating Monkey and get a prize if it succeeds. But in fact, in the award, it will appear a user survey page and require you to register credit card information or other service items.

"In my opinion, this is the most rogue place for this ad, but MySpace has not put it in mind, he will be the user's due respect for the left behind." I think at that time, there was only one word in their hearts: money! Money!!! " Only one action: Make money! Make MONEY!!! "

"In comparison, we can look at the last winner of Facebook," he said. It did not just advertise for profit in the early days of the company's development. Even if advertisements are advertised, most of them are natural native ads, which are easier for users to accept when they see the ads. Instead of having to see the jump of ads like Punch the monkey.

Percival said that during his online marketing leadership at MySpace, he had wanted to try to get a better program for new users and a memory helper that would be more appealing to old users. But there was resistance to developing resources to build my blueprint. MySpace's decision-making class thinks I'd better go back and develop punch the Monkey 2.0, and think about how to make enough of that 1 billion dollars.

Whether MySpace can successfully buy Spotify remains to be watched

Will MySpace be saved? Percival talking about MySpace at the time it was different from a lot of companies, and he admits that by the year 2009, MySpace may have been hopelessly out of reach. Not just because it's too late, but because it's hard to find a good network engineer to compete against a thriving technology company like Facebook and Google. Percival "I'm always thinking, I'm trying to make a change in nature but I'm not getting paid to buy it, so it just changes the surface a little bit." MySpace has become so cool at that time.

MySpace was a huge burden, the user experience is very bad, users often receive junk software and other strange things, so that people's mental tension.

In Percival's view, he feels MySpace should be more focused on its music, because once the music is published, Facebook gets it first and wins the priority of the entire social network.

"MySpace never wanted to admit that it lost the battle of the Internet. But the identity of the giant has been replaced by Facebook. On Facebook you're using your real name, and you're showing your true self. Instead of having a strange web name like 420princessxxx on MySpace.

"So in a sense, we have to admit that we really lost the game," he said. MySpace was supposed to be in the music field, and at that time MySpace had a special attraction, that it was the only platform in the world to play music for free.

"It's also a special thing that you can now enjoy at Spotify for free." It's a very special deal, and MySpace spends 10 million of dollars a year on the deal, and we have to pay a lot of other fees to fully own the business. This is the business that other companies have never had. The early days of MySpace were dedicated to matchmaking because there was no one that could be closer together than we were. ”

MySpace.

Percival that the acquisition of Spotify would be the most notable success of MySpace, and that mixing streaming media music through social features would be an innovation in the industry.

"There are still unknowns waiting for MySpace: We're trying to buy Spotify, and of course we know Spotify will not easily agree," Percival said. Because they don't need to. "We hint that Spotify will do so to capture a chance to become more socially social than Apple and Google, and, if so, to develop into a strong competitor."

"There are a lot of companies that don't take into account how they become social, and they never seem to think about it," Percival. Apple and Google are the representatives: Google + 's user experience has not been as satisfying. A company can not focus on internal engineering management but ignore the great power of social interaction, which is an experience for users to express strong feelings. In many cases, the pros and cons of engineers are not as important as they think. ”