The Google & MySpace Story
Back in May I wrote a post called “Google’s Social Awkwardness,” about how Google’s potential vulernability resided in its general absence of a “social networking” site (notwithstanding Orkut) and limited integration of social media into its portfolio of products and services. Since that time it’s done several things (e.g., Coop, Notebook) to be “more social” but certainly nothing like the investment Yahoo! is making.
Now comes a post from Robert Young on Om Malik’s site discussing how Google had the opportunity to buy MySpace for half of what News Corp. paid but passed. This is a fascinating revelation and suggests two things to me:
* Google truly didn’t “get” the social media phenomenon until recently
* Google’s seeming bias toward building vs. buying (generally speaking) may hurt the company from time to time
This would be one of those times . . .
–
Greg Sterling is the founding principal of Sterling Market Intelligence, a consulting and research firm focused on online consumer and advertiser behavior and the relationship between the Internet and traditional media, with an emphasis on the local marketplace.
