MySpace May Be Arrogant But It Can Make You Rich

NewsCorp (MySpace’s benevolent leader) COO Peter Chernin said Tuesday:

“If you look at virtually any Web 2.0 application, whether its YouTube, whether itâ€™s Flicker, whether itâ€™s Photobucket or any of the next-generation Web applications, almost all of them are really driven off the back of MySpace. Thereâ€™s no reason why we canâ€™t build a parallel business.”

While Chernin said MySpaceâ€™s video efforts are small at the moment, that could change. He estimated that 60%-70% of YouTubeâ€™s traffic comes from MySpace.

[MultiChannel]

So, MySpace is aware of all the people, companies (and bands, heh heh) piggy-backing on their success and is considering getting a piece of that action to remain on their servers. While the blogosphere takes a predictable stance of we’re-morally-better-because-we’re-not-corporate shock over MySpace’s “arrogance,” (blah blah blah) – I’m left wondering, like always – where’s the marketing lesson here?

There are businesses built on MySpace – from MySpace layout websites, MySpace code websites, people building the templates for those websites and selling them to others, people buying and selling (and, yes, phishing) profiles, $10 WSO’s on “How to Make $100/week on MySpace,” to big operations like YouTube.

Hell, Brooke Hogan was on the front page of MySpace for a week when her first single came out – MySpace has entire sections devoted to music, film, comedy, books… People in the entertainment industry have taken notice and are building their success and popularity at MySpace, from the ground up. It’s grassroots. It’s natural, it flows, there’s movement.

Consider this – what are MySpace users missing? What are some things they can’t currently do, or find cumbersome, but would like to? What a great survey that would be – I’d love to see the results.

Build it and they will come… No, seriously though – fill a gap in the market. There is always a gap, always something end users would add to an already-perfect service – and MySpace is far from perfect.

Call to action: Find a gap in the MySpace user’s experience and fill it.