Rupert Murdoch joined Twitter about a month ago, and like many active members of the Twitterverse, he's been using the platform to speak his mind. His latest tweet gives a tiny glimpse into what went wrong with formerly News Corp.-owned MySpace.
"Many questions and jokes about My Space.simple answer - we screwed up in every way possible, learned lots of valuable expensive lessons," the News Corp. CEO tweeted.
News Corp. acquired MySpace in 2005 for $580 million, but after losing ground to Facebook for several years, the company sold MySpace in June at the discount price of $35 million.
The company's August earnings report showed that News Corp. lost about $254 million on MySpace and losses from the once-top social networking site drove News Corp.'s overall net income down 22 percent.
However, some estimate that News Corp. lost even more on MySpace than it cares to admit. Taking into account all the money News Corp. spent running, then futilely attempting to resuscitate the site, Ars Technica calculated that MySpace easily cost the Murdoch empire at least $1 billion.
But MySpace, which is now owned by a lesser-known digital advertising company called Specific Media, was back in the news again this week. Panasonic announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES)—with the help of pop star and MySpace investor Justin Timberlake—that it's helping reinvent MySpace (now known as Myspace) as a social TV service via Viera Connect on Panasonic HDTVs.
The service will tap into Myspace's 100,000 music videos and 42 million songs, allowing users to watch, listen to, and comment on content through a Myspace TV app for smartphones and tablets. The company also plans to expand Myspace TV to include television and movies.