Wales to MySpace, you're gone in 2010 Options

[thekohser]

This comes from the Jonny Cache file of "why are reporters of mid-grade reputation suddenly piling on the Wikipedia bandwagon". My dad -- born before FDR's first "Fireside chat" -- e-mailed me, noting:

Greg, please go to the Orlando Sentinel. Etan Horowitz wrote yet another article on Wales. It is surprising that he has written two articles in three days on Wikipedia. His boss must want to get the most out of his all-expenses paid trip out to Disney for the meeting.

And you wonder where I get my skepticism? Note that my 74-year-old Pop is even noticing all the fluffy pro-Wikipedia journalism lately.

Anyway, see what Jimbo had to say about MySpace in the article:

"I think MySpace is doomed, I give them about two more years," Wales said of the social-networking site owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

Let's put MySpace on the death watch list, everyone. Jimbo knows a thing or two about doomed enterprises. Look at Bomis today. Look at the progress that Openserving.com is (not) making.

I hope you all click through to Horowitz's column, and especially observe Comment #1.

Greg

P.S. Just in case the Sentinel (or, as we used to call it, the SLANTinel) deletes my comment in the Wikipediot fashion, here's what I said:

Mr. Horowitz, you have succumbed to the mind-rays, it seems. See how you report that Jimmy Wales is the "founder" of Wikipedia? Why don't you check Wikipedia itself and learn that just about the entire world (except for Jimbo) recognizes him to be a CO-founder, along with Larry Sanger.

As for doomed enterprises like MySpace... Jimmy should know something about doomed operations. Where is Bomis.com today? How is that Openserving.com project of his going, now that it's been up and running for a year?

Regarding restaurants where people attack each other with knives -- let's think of a more apt analogy. If Wikipedia is a restaurant, that restaurant is serving food that is 100% delicious, but only 98% authentic. Your mashed potatoes are mixed in with 2% sawdust. Your Bloody Mary has 2% sheep's blood in it. Do you know what you're eating and drinking are tainted? No, probably not -- it still tastes delicious. When some expert points out to you the facts, though, what would you do -- as a responsible journalist? Wouldn't you inform your readers of the sawdust and sheep's blood scandal?

That's what's happening on Wikipedia right now. It is the world's most irresponsible encyclopedia, hiding behind Section 230 to enjoy saying that it is not a "publisher" of content, but rather a mere "Internet service provider". Come now, when you read Wikipedia, do you perceive that the content has been "published" for your edification, or merely that it is being "service provided" to you? Be honest with your answer.

Your readers would welcome some more cutting investigative reporting, rather than this PR "puff piece" that you've generated here. Here's where you can start -- why is the Wikimedia Foundation budgeting $4.6 million for 2008, when they've gotten by with a mere fraction of that amount in all previous years? Could you explain why they've operated without an Executive Director for a long time, but suddenly need to pay the new one imported from Canada (and her still unhired staff) over $500,000 next year? Yet, at the same time, the fundraising message is that the money is going to poor, uneducated Africans. It's going to a white, privileged woman named Sue Gardner -- but nobody's reporting on that. Please, we're begging you, do your job as a journalist, not a marketing flack.

This post has been edited by thekohser: Fri 27th August 2010, 7:15pm

[guy]

Etan Horowitz sounds Jewish. Does he know how Jimmy's pal Jayjg tried to destroy the List of American Jewish journalists and recruited a meatpuppet to help him?

[thekohser]

Bummer that this juicy thread isn't getting much traction with WR.

[Kato]

Bummer that this juicy thread isn't getting much traction with WR.

Maybe add a SlimVirgin angle to it and just watch those viewing figures shoot through the roof.

[The Joy]

Bummer that this juicy thread isn't getting much traction with WR.

What gives Jimbo the right to tell others like Murdoch (who makes more than a few million on Fox and other investments) that they've made a bad business decision?

Wikia maybe one of Jimbo's best business decisions but his other ventures haven't done so well. Murdoch's been around for hundreds of years and he does not buy or invest in something unless he darn well knows he'll make money off it.

Sorry, the Kohser, that Jimbo-related business issues don't always get on radar here. Since that "charity" thread, I've been curious about where all the money donated to Wikipedia goes and whether donors really understand what they are funding. I'd tell any potential donor just to watch the Administrator's Noticeboard for a week. There's always something psychotic going on there and who would want to donate money to website run by such weirdoes?

Do we know much about Wikia's profits and about how much Jimbo makes from it and his role as chairman emeritus of the WMF? I bet Murdoch still makes more than Jimbo.

[Kato]

I bet Murdoch still makes more than Jimbo.

And the rest.

Murdoch vs Wales. Now that's one knife fight to the death I'd pay to see.

Despite my deeply spiritual and fully committed loathing for Der Jimbo, I think I'd still be rooting for him against Rupert the bad. Haranguing Wales online with crude jokes and a few exposés is nothing. I remember when The People went to War against Murdoch in the 1980s. And lost!

[WhispersOfWisdom]

Jimmy Wales up against NewsCorp. ??? I do not think so.

The foundation might be able to fetch a net number in the low $millions.

Rupert is closer to $250,000,000,000+.

Without the alliance between Google and WP, there would be no WP.

Mr. Murdoch has a franchise (MySpace) that is at least worth as much as Facebook, now valued by the Microsoft venture, at nearly $15,000,000,000...(yes, billion U.S. dollars.)

Google and MySpace just launched the next social site which will take sides.

Jimmy either joins them now, or his franchise is in more trouble than MySpace.

I remember when MySpace was purchased by NewsCorp. for $600,000,000.

That was only a few years ago.

No Jimmy, your trading was not that good. Predictions like that will not get you anywhere.




This post has been edited by WhispersOfWisdom: Sun 4th November 2007, 3:49am

[thekohser]

Do we know much about Wikia's profits and about how much Jimbo makes from it and his role as chairman emeritus of the WMF? I bet Murdoch still makes more than Jimbo.

Jimbo makes nothing (directly) from the Wikimedia Foundation. Just the perks of compensated travel and the ability to bound about, talking about the wonders of Wikia in the same speeches where he's supposed to be talking about Wikipedia.

As for Wikia, I calculate that it is just finally becoming profitable, after paying salaries of staff, insurance, taxes, hosting costs, and infrastructure. Let's do the math...

Wikia reports 250 million page views per month. Typically, wiki pages get Google ad click-through rates of perhaps one-half percent. That's 1.25 million click-throughs per month. Google ads in wikis average about 29 cents per click paid to the hosting site. So, Wikia might be drawing about $360,000 in revenues per month. They have 35 employees on staff. Assume that they make an average salary (even very conservatively) of $45,000 per year. Salaries alone would cost $131,000 a month. Typical multiples for total expenses in a dot-com over base salary are (I don't really know) perhaps in the 2x or 2.5x range, maybe? Let's just guess that Wikia has total costs of doing business of $300,000 per month. That means they're making $60,000 in profit each month, or a 16% net return on investment -- not too shabby.

Rupert Murdoch would laugh heartily at the measly amounts discussed above, of course.

Greg

[Cobalt]

Myspace is totally dead. Nobody uses it anymore. 'Cept for all the high school/college students/musicians/comedians/etc who still go there but they're soooo last Tuesday.

I doubt he's got a talent for predicting things.

[WhispersOfWisdom]

My opinions only:

1.) Without Google, their (WP and Wikia) model fails. It is Google that gets people to WP.

2.) Without advertising $$, none of the sites exist. (That will eventually apply to WP.)

3.) Revenue per click is declining.

4.) Google has a plan; if it does not involve WP and Jimmy, WP and Jimmy go away. The foundation will be forced to sell and / or merge into a taxable entity. Then they could get some real money.

5.) Google and MySpace are joining forces. (They are launching a social site.)

6.) Microsoft invested in FaceBook because they had to get in the game.

7.) The demise of MySpace has been talked about since they started. (It is not happening.)

8.) YouTube is now owned by Google.

9.) NewsCorp, Apple, Microsoft, Google, FaceBook, and many others will be acquired or merge.

10.) Everything will eventually be owned by a bank or insurance company. Nothing is too large... until the next great depression or the Web2.0 bubble has burst. Jimmy must sell or merge. He must find a way to get at the clicks. WP could become a social site. His company is not in the game. WP was like the Beatles...right time and place, you know? Wikia is not growing like WP; is not going the way of WP. Jimmy is not in that game.

This post has been edited by WhispersOfWisdom: Sun 4th November 2007, 2:51pm

[Chris Croy]

1.) Without Google, their (WP and Wikia) model fails. It is Google that gets people to WP.

Experiment: Go hit random article 10 times. Take those 10 articles and search for their title on Google, Yahoo, Ask, AOL, and any other search engines you want to try. Google ranks Wikipedia high, but they are by no means the only search engine to do so.

3.) Revenue per click is declining.

Yes. Some, such as our friends at Google, want to replace it with 'Time spent looking at a site'. Hmm...What site tends to have relatively long articles people would want to read? Oh. Wikipedia.

6.) Microsoft invested in FaceBook because they had to get in the game.

Have you ever heard of Windows Live Spaces? I hadn't. It's bigger than Facebook and Myspace put together.

7.) The demise of MySpace has been talked about since they started. (It is not happening.)

Grow or die. Facebook is in a period of exponential growth. MySpace is not.

[thekohser]

Have you ever heard of Windows Live Spaces? I hadn't. It's bigger than Facebook and Myspace put together.

I would be curious how you define "bigger".

[Chris Croy]

Have you ever heard of Windows Live Spaces? I hadn't. It's bigger than Facebook and Myspace put together.

I would be curious how you define "bigger".

The first thing I checked was Wikipedia's List of Social Networking Websites, which says Live has 120 million users vs Facebook's 73 and Myspace's 107. I compared this to Alexa's listings. You can see the graph here. A quick look at 'daily reach' gives Live.com a vast, VAST lead over the others - bigger than both combined. However, upon closer examination I noticed Alexa disregarded the modifier of 'spaces.live.com' and just made it 'live.com', making the comparison extremely lopsided. Wikipedia's source link is broken, leaving me on my own for verifying where that number came from.

Then I found the answer: Microsoft is using a very unique definition of user

First, here's an actual MS source for the 120 million quote, so we know it's not something someone cut from whole cloth. A little googling turned up this, which lays it out: They get 120 million UNIQUE HITS, but they only have 40 million registered users.

My curiosity was piqued. I checked out the source linked for MySpace's and Facebook's numbers, I find that it says NOTHING OF THE KIND. It doesn't comment on their actual number of accounts at all.

It's too damn late. Fixing THOSE sourcing problems will take at least 10 minutes, on top of the others I'll discover in the meanwhile. I'm going to sleep.

[thekohser]

Have you ever heard of Windows Live Spaces? I hadn't. It's bigger than Facebook and Myspace put together.

I would be curious how you define "bigger".

The first thing I checked was Wikipedia's List of Social Networking Websites, which says Live has 120 million users vs Facebook's 73 and Myspace's 107. I compared this to Alexa's listings. You can see the graph here. A quick look at 'daily reach' gives Live.com a vast, VAST lead over the others - bigger than both combined. However, upon closer examination I noticed Alexa disregarded the modifier of 'spaces.live.com' and just made it 'live.com', making the comparison extremely lopsided. Wikipedia's source link is broken, leaving me on my own for verifying where that number came from.

Then I found the answer: Microsoft is using a very unique definition of user

First, here's an actual MS source for the 120 million quote, so we know it's not something someone cut from whole cloth. A little googling turned up this, which lays it out: They get 120 million UNIQUE HITS, but they only have 40 million registered users.

My curiosity was piqued. I checked out the source linked for MySpace's and Facebook's numbers, I find that it says NOTHING OF THE KIND. It doesn't comment on their actual number of accounts at all.

It's too damn late. Fixing THOSE sourcing problems will take at least 10 minutes, on top of the others I'll discover in the meanwhile. I'm going to sleep.

And, thus, as it usually is with Wikipedia. The first-mover advantage goes to the editor who can enter information first into Wikipedia -- especially with an official-looking (but nonetheless bogus) reference citation... It's too much work to prove the source wrong AND replace it with correct information and a better source.

You would think Microsoft is influencing Wikipedia to overstate its user and penetration statistics. But Microsoft would NEVER do that, with "complex investigators" like Durova keeping watch, right? I've read in several places that Wikipedia's 1,100 admins keep the site very clean and free of incorrect information, so that must be true.



Greg

[Chris Croy]

Incidentally, lunch made me remember how I might've screwed up on the other source. So I went over to the article again and checked the source again. See, it was almost 2 AM and I had to sleep and stuff. I had just done a quick text search for 'million', 'facebook', and some others. When I didn't find it, I went to sleep.

When I looked at it today, it occurred to me it might be in a PICTURE and thus not searchable. I had automatically tuned out the picture in the middle of the article as one of those annoying ads that screws up article formatting.

Mea culpa and whatnot.

[the fieryangel]

Greg, please go to the Orlando Sentinel. Etan Horowitz wrote yet another article on Wales. It is surprising that he has written two articles in three days on Wikipedia. His boss must want to get the most out of his all-expenses paid trip out to Disney for the meeting.

I think that WMF already sees that donations are down...So they're trying to get the press out to drum up business.

The thing is, this kind of "nickle dime" operation is not how you run a not-for-profit. You DO ask for private contribututions, but you go agressively after foundation money...

WMF hasn't figured this out...or more probably, they have figured out that the kind of questions that these people will ask is more trouble than it's worth.....


So, they're stuck with....Janey's lunch money as their principal funding source.

Pretty pathetic, even for WP.

[thekohser]

In April 2007, Jimmy Wales said "MySpace hurts my eyes."

Later, in November 2007, Wales opined "I think MySpace is doomed, I give them about two more years."

Since 2007, MySpace has indeed dropped in average daily reach of Internet users from about 10% of the population to about 3% of the population, according to Alexa. It is still the 11th most popular website in the United States, though.

Strange definition of "doomed" and "two more years", Jimbo.

[A Horse With No Name]

Since 2007, MySpace has indeed dropped in average daily reach of Internet users from about 10% of the population to about 3% of the population, according to Alexa. It is still the 11th most popular website in the United States, though.

Hey, Uncle Big Bad, where does Wikipedia rank in comparison to MySpace for the 2007 to 2010 period?

[thekohser]

Since 2007, MySpace has indeed dropped in average daily reach of Internet users from about 10% of the population to about 3% of the population, according to Alexa. It is still the 11th most popular website in the United States, though.

Hey, Uncle Big Bad, where does Wikipedia rank in comparison to MySpace for the 2007 to 2010 period?

Essentially, they switched spaces on the Internet rankings.

[Web Fred]

A lot of the musicians I deal with, although they did have MySpace pages they are leaving them where they are, unattended and not brought up to date, and moving across to Facebook. As most of them are of the older end of the spectrum are, by and large, totally confused with Twitter.