Myspace Revived with Social Messaging Makeover

  We thought Myspace was left for dead, in the graveyard along with Friendster and Geocities...but maybe not

MySpace is still alive, which may not be surprising, but the fact that it's alive and kicking is a bit of a shock: It's due to give a sleek revamp to its hideous profile pages, and has bought Threadbox to rejig its social messaging skills.

The news about a revamp to MySpace's profile pages first came via a tweet from a MySpace executive, but then MySpace confirmed it via a short statement: "We're testing a new look and feel of our site among users" it noted, adding that clients seemed to like the changes thus far. "As always, we're interested in hearing feedback from our community as we roll out enhancements to the user experience and look forward to sharing more details with you in the coming weeks" is a much more exciting phrase to read, though, as it points to a more thorough revamp en route.

The new changes seem to simplify and de-clutter the typical MySpace home page style, add in a Flickr gallery connection and some social networking functionality. It's all extremely welcome to those Netizens who find MySpace's current pa...

NOTE: Article text has been summarized. Click here for the entire post.

Will Myspace Survive

  Report illustrates that Facebook revenues will increase, at the expense of Myspace

A recent eMarketer report says that ads are climbing at Facebook, at the expense of competitor Myspace.

Article on Business Week

U.S. advertising on social networks will drop 3%, to $1.1 billion, in 2009, led by a slump at MySpace, eMarketer says. At the same time, Facebook's ad revenue will grow 9.5%, to $230 million. MySpace's ad revenues are expected to fall more than 15%, to $495 million, and its share of the roughly $1 billion market for social network advertising will slip about 7 percentage points, to 43%. Facebook's will rise 2.3 percentage points, to 20.2%.

Over the next two years, the growing number of marketers flocking to Facebook will fuel an ad rebound, according to eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson. "In 2010, as we start to come out of the recession, Facebook has all its guns going, and marketers will be putting more social media in [their budgets] where it makes sense," she says.

While the United States accounts for the majority of ad spending on MySpace and Facebook, non-US spending is growing rapidly at Facebook,...

NOTE: Article text has been summarized. Click here for the entire post.