Jon Miller, Owen Van Natta Explain MySpace and News Corp. to You
The AllThingsD blog has finally posted an almost 45-minute interview with News Corp. and MySpace’s new digital intelligentsia from its D7 conference last month, namely chief digital officer Jon Miller and MySpace chief Owen Van Natta; I believe it is their first big, public appearance since being named to their posts. If you’re a what-will-happen-to-MySpace obsessive, watch the whole 45 minutes, if not, here is a quick summary:
- It’s obvious that neither Miller or Van Natta yet knows how to leverage MySpace’s strength, which is entertainment (and music in particular), while simultaneously growing the social net beyond what it is today.
- Miller believes that micropayments are “about to be here” and will bring an additional revenue stream to wholly ad-supported content sites.
- There’s almost a year and a half left in the Google search deal, and Miller is looking to expand the deal so that it encompasses more of News Corp.
- That Van Natta dislikes the MySpace experience and believes the key to fixing it is personalization; those who want to keep the current in-your-face MySpace experience can, and the rest of us can get rid of it.
- That change will happen to MySpace “faster and sooner” (as evidenced by its rapid restructuring). When asked what he learned from his experience at the helm of AOL, Miller said he wished he had moved more quickly.
- That Miller needs MySpace to become outwardly focused, and “market-facing” going forward, paying close attention to what metrics are saying about how consumers are using the service.
Ultimately, this interview is more about the business philosophies that got Miller and Van Natta in their jobs than about how the duo plan to change MySpace, and News Corp.’s digital operations. But it begins to set the stage for what’s to come — whatever it is.
Previous coverage of MySpace at BNET Media:
Catharine P. Taylor has been covering digital media and advertising for almost 15 years and is a frequent speaker at conferences about media and advertising. She posts daily to BNET Media, writes the weekly Social Media Insider column for Mediapost and also has her own advertising blog, Adverganza.com. Follow her on Twitter or subscribe to the BNET Media Twitter feed.
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