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Oct

6

Insider Trading and Audience Graying at MySpace

Posted by Tish Grier

MySpace founder and former Intermix Media chairman Brad Greenspan is demanding that the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Justice Department, and the Senate investigate his allegations that Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp "bilked" investors out of billions of dollars in its $580 billion dollar acquisition of the social networking behemoth.

As reported in the Los Angeles Times Greenspan "leveled allegations of insider trading and options manipulation on the website FreeMySpace.com, where he quotes e-mail exchanges that purport to show how Intermix engineered a quick sale to News Corp."

"It wasn't about what's the best deal," Greenspan said. "It was about getting the deal done at any cost and jamming it home. That's just not a fair way to play."

This all may become relative if MySpace begins to lose its "cool" factor with the 18-34 crowd. OnLine Media Daily looks at the "Greying of MySpace": " More than half the visitors to the popular social network site are now 35 or over--up from less than 40 percent last year.

The proportion of MySpace's audience between the ages of 12 and 24, meanwhile, has dropped to 30 percent from 44.3 percent over the last year, according to a study by comScore Media Metrix released Thursday. The comScore research compared audience demographics among top social sites, aiming to dispel the notion that they are the exclusive domain of teens. "

Steve Yelvington notes the "greying" phenomenon: "That shouldn't be surprising; with the barrage of media coverage about the dangers of Myspace, every mother in America is trolling through Myspace for evidence of her children's activities. (And probably more than a few older creeps trolling for the children.) Anybody tempted to think Myspace is unassailable as a business should keep in mind that young people have fickle brand loyalties and can switch in a moment, and there are many alternatives."

COMMENTS

1. barb dybwad on October 13, 2006 04:46 PM writes...

comScore's report may be somewhat misleading...

http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2006/10/10/comscore_misint.html

small point of clarification, it was $580 million, not billion, but still... insider trading? i wouldn't be surprised.

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2. tish grier on October 13, 2006 05:42 PM writes...

hi barb,

Thanks for the link to the Comscore stats....

One thing I have noticed happening to my own MySpace account, though, is an increase in MySpace spammers--I've received 3 spam invites in less than a week. Don't think it has anything to do with age, but does show how even someone radically inactive can get "invites"

Greenspan's case, however, was dismissed--Superior court judge Carolyn B. Kuhl found the acquisition lawful.

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