Analysis: New marketing wrinkle online

LOS ANGELES, May 4 (UPI) -- MySpace.com, developed as a social networking Web site, has turned into a valuable marketing opportunity -- particularly for entertainment products geared to appeal to consumers in their teens to mid-30s.

The site was launched in September 2003. It has more than 14.5 million members signed up and reports that 65,000 more sign up for free every day.

MySpace offers members personalized Web pages on which to post personal profiles and photos, join groups according to their interests and develop lists of friends with whom they communicate regularly. The site is especially popular among high school students, but membership is limited by company policy to those 16 and older.

Citing the Web media-ratings service Media Metrics, MySpace Chief Executive Officer Chris DeWolfe said the site is the seventh-most visited Web site on the Internet -- and No. 3, behind Yahoo and MSN, in terms of the number of ad impressions served, that is, the number of people who will view the ad online.

A significant amount of that advertising business comes from entertainment marketing.

MySpace announced Wednesday that alternative rock band Weezer's first new album in three years, "Make Believe," will stream in its entirety on the site from Thursday through Tuesday, when the album is due in stores. The online promotion will feature member listening parties and Weezer concert tour ticket giveaways.

For the past week, Warner Bros. Pictures and Maverick Records have been offering exclusive content on MySpace from the feature film "House of Wax," which opens in U.S. theaters Friday. The arrangement has allowed visitors to see footage from "House of Wax" not available elsewhere and to stream video content by The Prodigy -- as well as audio from the rest of the "House of Wax" soundtrack.

MySpace has been used to market movies in the past, but DeWolfe told United Press International the "House of Wax" promotion is the first to use all of the site's available content avenues.

"Obviously, studios have been marketing movies on the Internet, but MySpace is truly a new paradigm," he said. "Other sites use clips, but on MySpace, users interact with one another and with the brand -- writing testimonials or commenting on the soundtrack, or making plans to go to a movie with other MySpace friends."

Exposing new entertainment products in this way could be a two-edged sword for marketers -- since it gives the public a chance to criticize as well as rave about movies, records and other projects. DeWolfe said studios and record companies are OK with that.

"They really put it all out there," he said. "A perfect example is the exclusive TV show release that we did with 'The Office.'"

When NBC was launching its Americanized version of the hit British TV series "The Office," MySpace showed the new series' second episode in its entirety before the premiere episode appeared on TV.

"The idea was to generate a healthy dialogue among viewers," he said. "People weighed in on both sides."

DeWolfe said content providers generally know they need to maintain a sense of authenticity and transparency with this type of marketing.

"Especially among 16- to 34-year-olds," he said. "They're very smart and they know when they're being manipulated."

The current trend toward independent production in movies -- and independent production and distribution in recorded music -- has helped create a hospitable market environment for the kind of marketing MySpace specializes in and has provided opportunities for independents to navigate the market without the traditional reliance on established, well-heeled music companies.

"Consolidation in radio -- homogenized music, smaller playlists, (record label) roster cuts -- it sort of opens up this whole space for a company like MySpace to be able to provide a forum to be able to discover new music, and for bands to get their music out there that they never had before," said DeWolfe.

Currently, more than 240,000 artists and bands upload songs, promote concerts and connect with fans on the site through weblogs, postings and messaging. DeWolfe compares that to the growing popularity of blogs as a way for people to communicate about news and public affairs without having to go through the traditional news media structure.

"Everything spreads more quickly around the world than it used too," he said. "It's a function of the changing habits of the 16- to 34-year-olds, the millennial generation that has really grown up with so much choice -- iPod, cable channels, everything."

Just as the current online environment has sprung up as a challenge to what many regard as an antiquated media environment, so the time will likely come when something else will show up to challenge MySpace. DeWolfe said his company expects to ride with change.

"I don't think this sort of paradigm will ever become obsolete, but there will be other paradigms and we're getting prepared for that," he said. "Wireless social networks will evolve, but we happen to believe they will evolve from Web sites like ours."

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