CEO and cofounder of the social networking giant MySpace, Chris DeWolfe, said firmly that "We will at some point offer user-generated e-commerce transactions. So if you’re on your site and you have a line of T-shirts you have designed and you want to sell them to your friends, we want to be able to provide you with the tools you need to do that."
Now that that’s cleared up, does DeWolfe have any potential partners in mind? Start up the rumor mill again, because he definitely does.
"So we could partner certainly with someone like eBay to do that. We haven’t decided yet but it would be probably a good bet that someone like eBay could be a good partner." He goes on to cite a possible timeframe of "six to nine months down the line" for the beginnings of a tangible e-commerce service for MySpace’s 69 million monthly users.
A partnership with MySpace would certainly be appealing to eBay, who would probably love nothing more than to take another jab at Google, who has been getting on the online auction giant’s nerves lately.
"Forcing MySpace’s gigantic user base to use eBay-owned PayPal as their means of exchanging money, rather the new kid on the block in Google Checkout, would further extend eBay’s dominance of e-commerce. Right now, eBay users are forced to use PayPal rather than Checkout, and partnering with MySpace extends that monopolistic strategy," said Steve O’Hear over at ZDNet.
With MySpace’s dominating usage numbers, it will be hard for eBay to turn its back on the notion of a partnership, even if it means sharing its revenues with the social network.
Facebook, which saw an 89% increase in its visitors last year, compared to an increase of 34% at MySpace, is quickly becoming the "pretty, pure, kind girl next door" while MySpace seems to be heading towards that "slutty girl who wears too much makeup and shows too much skin" realm.
Web users have shown a clear preference for barebones, aesthetically clean presentation of content thanks to Google and Apple. API-friendly Facebook seems to be marching down that path faithfully, opening up their own e-commerce service that has virtually no frills attached, making it a more appealing outlet for partners that do not want to share revenues.
MySpace seems to be heading down a much different path. This doesn’t mean that it will crumble and implode, but a backlash in response to its almost-sickening commercialization is not out of the question.
Sources:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?
xml=/money/2007/06/18/cnmyspace118.xml
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/06/
18/myspace-ceo-makes-eyes-at-ebay
http://blogs.zdnet.com/social/?p=213
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