Why did MySpace cross the road? To get to the other side. That, fellow Fools, is a lame joke wrapped around a nugget of truth: The popular social networking site has just launched a new area for budding and established comedians.
News Corp.'s (NYSE:NWS) often controversial website is clearly looking to duplicate its success (as a launching pad for bands of all abilities through MySpace Music) with the newly christened MySpace Comedy.
Curb your enthusiasm. For starters, every neighborhood seems to have a garage band or two jamming away during the weekend, but when was the last time that you heard the "garage comedian" expression bandied about? MySpace Comedy features mostly video clips of established comedians doing standup or appearing on television shows, and most wannabe funny guys and gals just don't have that kind of portfolio to stream.
Following the laugh track
MySpace Music is pretty close to perfect. Bands get to upload as many as four different tracks to showcase their best material. Record labels are feverishly scouring the site to discover unsigned bands generating the biggest virtual buzz. MySpace Comedy will attract folks interested in standup and improvisational yuk-yuks, but it will never be the hub of passionate street teams that some of the top artists on MySpace Music have achieved.
That's fine. It doesn't have to be a homer. MySpace knows that it's got the bases loaded already, and a little bunt single will still score a run. MySpace has already become a verb, by gum, and that's the crowning achievement for a website. And being lampooned this past weekend on Saturday Night Live is perfect timing in terms of launching a comedy area.
The navigational tab on MySpace already runneth over. It now features a new secondary menu highlighting other new areas devoted to everything from movies to books to horoscopes. The implications aren't insignificant. As one of the most trafficked sites on the Internet, if book lovers start to congregate there will it be good news or bad news for Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)? Just as MySpace Music poses both a challenge and an opportunity for music labels like Warner Music Group (NYSE:WMG) and Sony (NYSE:SNE), if MySpace sneezes in your direction, you'd better pony up and learn to deal with the microorganisms.
MySpace started out as a way to gauge young adult popularity, but now it is democratizing entire industries. Ignore at your own risk, Corporate America.
Dial M for Murdoch
Some people can't get over the fact that the same Rupert Murdoch company that runs the conservative Fox News network just happens to have one of the loosest -- and at times lewdest -- mainstream sites. That's just the sheer genius of Murdoch. He's playing all of the angles, and most audiences don't even realize that they are being played.
Web audiences are fickle, of course. Before MySpace, the social networking pioneers were companies like Friendster and Tribe.net. They were unfashionably early to the gabfest revolution. Instead of striking it rich, they will have to settle for being footnotes, laying the groundwork for MySpace by educating the market.
As the argument goes, it would seem only natural that the party eventually moves somewhere else. Once the coolest kids, bands, and babes flock to the next big thing, the masses will follow.
Social networking isn't exactly a moveable feast, though. MySpace has amassed more than 78 million accounts and it's not as if they will go dormant without a fight. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, traffic at MySpace has shot up 367% over the past year, with 38.4 million visitors last month alone. While you should keep a ripcord handy for the future, there is no denying that MySpace has the momentum and is really the only brand that matters in social networking at the moment. The fact that MySpace is trying to lay out thicker pieces of flypaper this month in attracting bookworms, zodiac buffs, and comedy fans is part of the plan for perpetual stickiness.
The anti-corporate incorporation
Just as Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) held a top-level summit last year to address the challenge of Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), companies need to size up MySpace as both a threat and the mother of all opportunities. This also goes for Microsoft and Google, by the way, even if MySpace doesn't launch a competing search engine over the next few months.
Companies will be smart to follow the blueprints of some of the more successful bands on the site. Accept the challenge. Reach out to the growing audience of impressionable youth. Bands like Fall Out Boy and television shows like The Office have launched successfully on the site by cashing in on the MySpace audience. Offering little extras, they are able to provide value to the visitor while forging a bond that fortifies the notion that they matter. Even the term "friend" -- which MySpace uses for the mutually-approved networks that tangle this web -- hypes up the virtual relationships.
The young blood at MySpace will hate me for suggesting this, but if you run a business you need a free presence on MySpace. Small companies can reach out to the locals. Content providers can show a little contextual skin to win over new customers.
Remember Amazon? The leading e-tailer is all over MySpace, as shown by the new MySpace Books area, which is loaded with affiliate links to Amazon.com. Most companies won't have that kind of luxury, but they will need to formulate a response. Ignorance isn't an excuse. It's a death knell.
Amazon is a Stock Advisor recommendation and Microsoft is an Inside Value selection. If you enjoy this kind of proactive thinking, you may enjoy the Rule Breakers newsletter service, where Rick and other analysts scour the market for disruptive technology investments.
Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz knows that you can't ignore sleeping giants, much less the ones that are wide awake like MySpace. He does not own shares in any of the companies in this story. The Fool has a disclosure policy.
