Wow, something’s up here—this is the second time this week we’ve written about MySpace. The granddaddy of all social networks is having quite the week for news, with the announcement of their video fingerprinting ad partnership Monday, their Q3 announcement, rumors about the income from their new ad platform and rumors about naming a CEO for their new music division. Whew!

Yesterday, MySpace’s parent (grandparent?) company, News Corp, discussed its Q3 earnings. While many of the conglomerate’s divisions did poorly, MySpace’s unit still posted a 17% increase in revenue YOY. However, they are feeling the hit of the failing economy, as Rupert Murdoch said:

“We are doing slightly better than the marketplace, but it’s clear from everybody else that there’s a lot of softening in the display advertising marketplace, and we are clearly beginning to feel some of that.”

However, their new ad platform, MySpace MyAds, is doing booming business. Michael Arrington’s sources estimate that the three-week-old platform is raking in on average $140,000 to $180,000 a day—making it a $50M a year business in less than a month. These levels may be sustainable long term, too.

Our sources say that a large number of ad arbitragers are trying out the system, as well as many of the millions of music artists that have MySpace pages. Those artist ads are doubly profitable for MySpace, since the ads link back to MySpace web pages, driving up page views and additional advertising impressions.

Outsiders are estimating that MySpace revenues for the fiscal year ending June 2009 will reach $1 billion. It’s clear that MyAds will be a significant driver of revenue growth. 2008 revenue was estimated to $750 million.

Finally, MySpace Music, which launched in September, is shopping for a CEO. AllThingD’s Peter Kafka notes, however, that the job doesn’t carry as much prestige as the title normally would, since it’s only a divisional CEO position. He says Courtney Holt, head of Viacom & MTV’s digital music, will be announced as the MySpace Music CEO tonight or tomorrow.

In the tech blogosphere, MySpace is often treat as if it’s “so yesterday”—now even its biggest challenger has lost its media darling status. But MySpace continues to innovate for users and advertisers—which probably has a lot to do with why they’re still the most popular social network online.

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MySpace Revenue Up, New Ads Up Even More

The most popular video site on the web, YouTube has long been in negotiations with movie studios to stream full-length feature films. And while there are still a lot of details to be hammered out, sources say that the deal could be complete in thirty to ninety days, according to CNET reports today.

Among the major sticking points, as with everything else on YouTube, is finding the right way to monetize full-length films. According to two studio sources, YouTube parent Google is insistent upon one particular form, though they didn’t say whether that was preroll, postroll or overlays. And of course, there’s still the issue of balancing enough advertising to make it worthwhile to the site and the studio without driving away the viewers.

And here’s something I never thought I’d say: YouTube’s major competition in this area will come from none other than Hulu. Hulu has totally pwned come to dominate the long-form video market online, with high quality streaming. As CNET points out:

A showdown between Hulu and the 3-year-old YouTube was inevitable. Consider that Hulu, the joint video venture formed by NBC Universal and News Corp., attracts only a fraction of the 80 million people who visit YouTube each month, but Hulu still managed to generate nearly the same revenue in its first year in business, according to reports.

Naturally, that strength for YouTube—audience size—is a big reason why the studios have turned to YouTube instead of Hulu.

There is a little bit of precedent for the YouTube deals as well. In July, YouTube announced a partnership with Canadian film company Lionsgate. This partnership yielded film previews from Lionsgate with links to purchase the full-length film for download.

What do you think—will YouTube become the long-form streaming video destination, will they split the market with Hulu, or will the deal never materialize?

via

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YouTube to Show Full-Length Films by Year End?

If Jerry Yang were a college football coach, his athletic director would likely have already asked him to step down, or else. Just ask Tommy Bowden (formerly of Clemson) what happens when you promise much, but deliver zip.

Of course, Jerry Yang is not solely responsible for Yahoo’s current woes, but in light of the fact that Yahoo failed to get a deal done with Microsoft (at $31 a share) and bet big on a partnership with Google–a deal even Google didn’t believe would be approved–is it time for him to resign?

I ask because of the sorry state Yahoo is now in. Even if Yang is somehow able to entice Microsoft back to the negotiating table, the company would likely fetch less than $15 a share–compare that to the $31 the company previously turned down.

Yang seems like a great guy–the very essence of what it means to be a Yahoo–but I’ve known plenty of nice guys and they don’t all make great CEOs (or football coaches).

What do you think? Should Yang stay on, or step down?

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I have written about AOL in the past. I usually write about them when I am reminded of them. Honestly, AOL plays literally no part in my life except when quarterly results of Time Warner are discussed. In today’s WSJ, AOL once again shows up in the news in dubious fashion. If you are the AOL brass you would sure hope that one day you are not part of this headline “Time Warner Posts Flat Profit; AOL Offsets TV, Media Gains”. It doesn’t seem likely that this will happen in the near future or maybe ever.

Now it appears as if the AOL brand is being used as an excuse for an under performing Time Warner. It’s kind of like going to the family picnic and your brother’s family shows up late again because one of their kids just can’t seem to get it together. Time Warner’s Chief Executive, Jeffrey Bewkes, must have a standard line he gives on analyst calls that reiterates AOL’s inability to make anything but trouble for a media giant that is suffering right now.

Third quarter results for AOL showed a 6% decline in advertising revenue which is the worst results of the year. Display advertising dropped 15% which is not a surprise because it has long been a concern of everyone as to its poor performance as an advertising vehicle. This quote really says it all:

Solving the AOL problem is one of the biggest challenges facing Chief Executive Jeffrey Bewkes as he seeks to kick-start Time Warner’s faltering share price. Since taking the reins 10 months ago, Mr. Bewkes has slashed costs and pulled the trigger on a long-expected spinoff of Time Warner Cable, focusing the company more on its content businesses. But finding a long-term solution to AOL continues to elude him.

If you are tird to AOL you must be getting weather reports that it looks stormy and dangerous in the near future. Time Warner has spun off Time Warner Cable to keep those numbers off the mother ship’s books moving forward. Taking that fact into consideration, you have to feel that AOL is not too far away from a similar fate. In reporting for the third quarter, Time Warner’s CFO John Martin made it a point to show what an adjusted operating profit for Time Warner’s content businesses would be WITHOUT Time Warner Cable and AOL. Ouch. Do you think they are setting the stage for future results where AOL is not a concern?

Now there will be responses to this post from both sides of the ledger. People who work at AOL are passionate about their efforts and that’s good. The facts, though, show that passion only goes so far. You need to make money to be a player. AOL is now only discussed as a drag on profits so this does not bode well for remaining a part of the Time Warner family. Heck, this situation gets another article in today’s WSJ discussing how Time magazine and Fortune could be let loose. The final paragraph of that article should make those at AOL a bit nervous:

Time Warner held on to AOL too long — although Mr. Bewkes, since taking over as CEO, has taken more aggressive steps to unload the online operation. He should now at least test the market for Time and Fortune to see if he can exit at a sensible price.

I guess the idea of a “sensible price” for AOL is out the window. Oh well, you snooze you lose.

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AOL - At Least They Are Consistent

Today is my grandma’s ninetieth birthday! (Feel free to leave birthday wishes here if you want, but she’s probably not going to see them and I don’t think I’ll be spending half our dinner together tonight trying to explain who you people are and why you’re wishing her a happy birthday. I appreciate the kindness, of course.)

• There’ve been rumors about an Easter Egg in Google Street View, and now it has its own website: Street with a View is turned Google’s Street View car trip down one Pittsburgh street into a living art project (via).
• Not terribly surprisingly, but quite disappointingly the Fortune 500 doesn’t get SEO. How bad is it? 72% have very little to no organic visibility for their most-advertised keywords.
• You hear a lot about Open ID, but very little about its competitor Facebook Connect—but is it coming soon to a site near you?
• Personally, I’m quite partial to Firefox, and I’m not the only one—they’ve reached 20% market share now.

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Linky Goodness, November 5