It may be true that a great many people want to express themselves and are at the same time “inherently voyeuristic”, but I would argue that this is mostly a youth-oriented phase of life (as Robert Young stated, “particularly from the younger demographic”). Will the youth of today on MySpace continue to expend significant amount of time expressing themselves and creating their own video content when, years later, they start having families and by golly they have things like expensive college tuitions to pay in an increasingly globally competitive market where jobs are being outsourced left and right?

I’m willing to bet that when it comes to money making and survival, the very hyper youth demographic of today will easily forgo putting large amounts of their time and attention into MySpace-like pages when they shift into different aspects of their life such as when the tax man comes, the oil prices continue to rise, wedding ceremonies show up, babies are born, home mortgages are desired, college tuitions appear, and oh yes, retirement money needs to be saved.

Murdoch of course understands demographics quite well and realizes that as long as new babies are born, there will always be a fresh supply of ingress of youth into MySpace while the older youth egress and move on to something else.

For instance, let’s assume a new third-party ad network emerges… one that’s able to monetize MySpace pages far better than even MySpace can. Currently, if users place those ads on their pages, they would be in technical violation of MySpace’s TOS. It would be very interesting to see how they deal with such a situation.

News Corp could simply buy the new ad network, of course. But that wouldn’t really resolve the core issue.

Thanks again for advancing the scenario.

I agree with the intent of coining “social integration” — this definitely requires a new way of thinking.

Let’s take your AdSense reference. AdSense has been successful because it does attempt to own either the platform or the content — note that Google never ran ads on Blogger per se — they simply gave bloggers a platform to run the ads themselves, and then took a piece of the action. But they didn’t have to own Blogger to do it — owning blogger simply allowed them to provide the blogging platform for free, and thus drive more content creation that feeds AdSense.

News Corp needs to stop thinking in terms of “owning” MySpace’s page views — advertisers don’t want to advertise on those pages because News Corp doesn’t control the content. And MySpace users don’t want the ads on the pages uninvited.

It would seem the real opportunity is for someone, News Corp or a third party, to offer MySpace users a platform like AdSense to monetize their content. In this scenario, MySpace is no more than a free host, like Blogger — it gives them no advantage in providing this platform.

I agree with most everything you stated… since the digital assets that comprise social media cannot be completely owned by the media companies per usual (e.g. the recent brouhaha over Billy Braggs’ music and MySpace’s subsequently clarification of copyright licensing), the classic definitions of vertical and horizontal integration becomes obsolete. Hence my attempt to define via a new phrase and a new concept… “social integration”.

I do take issue, however, with your last sentence. Monetization engines of social media will likely reside with the owner of the platforms simply because it’s far more efficient to aggregate the management of such controls (even in light of the fact that most of content itself is owned by the users). That said, sharing such dollars with the user-rightsholders seems to be a rising tide… much in the spirit of Google Adsense.

There’s just one problem with this thesis — you’re assuming media companies can effectively “own” social media. There’s a reason why News Corp is struggling to monetize MySpace — most people who visit MySpace are not visiting Myspace the News Corp media property — they are visiting EACH OTHER.

Social connections and peer production are indeed extremely powerful — but can they really be “vertically and horizontally” intergtated? You can’t really have it both ways — you can’t cede control to the audience and yet still own and monetize what they produce.

Yes… very nicely put. And then Google came along to help (regular) people find good stuff in that wildly chaotic resource, and suddenly AOL was obselete.

I wonder if there will be a comparable breakthrough in the world of social media?

The motivation of social publishers in this new world is personal expression not money. This is also what makes social content so appealing to the viewers (it’s real), and is why it will continue to take market share away from traditional media. Reality television was the first step is this transition. Lower quality production will still attract viewers if the story and characters are engaging. Human beings are inherently voyeuristic while at the same time have the need to express themselves. These two characteristics ensure that regardless of quality social media will continue to grow.

As far as monetization, it is true that this new world must make money, but it is unlikely that viewers will willingly pay for content when so much can be accessed for free. This will be especially true if social media can move toward being ad supported rather than rely on a transactional monetization method. Social media is a way for individuals to project an image to the masses which may eventually make it an ideal platform for brand advertising. This new world will thrive when brands find a way to become part of that image. This isn’t an easy task and we will have to wait and see if brands can figure out how to participate.

People still buy and collect movies on DVDs. People are still addicted to their TiVo to catch and preserve ever rarifying glimpses of quality content on traditional “broadcast” channels, be they Cable, or Radio waves.

But that all could easily change. Consider technologies such as DV, H.264, and a slew of affordable post-production platforms, it is now within the realm of possibility to produce professional-grade content, that consumers might actually be interested in purchasing.

What we need are:

1) a new digital media marketplace where it is possible for content authors to market and sell content. To generate revenue incentive.

2) a few talented forward-looking “authors” who have made their mark in the “old world” to show the way by making their mark in the “new world”. They would produce content to be released and sold solely in the new digital market place.

In this new world, marketing and distribution overheads are dramatically lowered, and, thru online social networks, the word-of-mouth effect becomes more powerful than ever. The cream rises to the top not thru what is dictated by a handful of entrenched distribution chains, but instead thru infinite individual voices, representing infinite individual interests.

These are the same giant media conglomerates that have been around been around for ages. Most of the top ten media companies 20 years ago are the same top ten today. Granted they are now buying up cultural and social capital in the form of these online communities…but am I the only one that finds it incredibly depressing that no new leader in media has emerged?

What is emerging is a beautiful new model for media! Is this the best we can do with it? Hand it over to the same incumbents that have homogenized and corporatized creativity and culture for years? Is the highest aspiration for a new media company to become a property of Viacom?

If there is any meaning to life on Earth, I really hope not.