MySpace a Frankenstein?

Fark me. Now, Rupert Murdoch’s gotten stuck into the Kool Aid.

The establishment is stuffed. Bloggers are taking over, says Rupert.

“It is a creative, destructive technology that is still in its infancy, yet breaking and remaking everything in its path. We are all on a journey, not just the privileged few, and technology will take us to a destination that is defined by the limits of our creativity, our confidence and our courage”

Of course, it’s all very well for Rupe’s to say that now that he owns MySpace, which even for the gazillions he paid is now starting to look like a big of a bargain. We’re quite sure that Rupert believes he’s going to ride the wave of disruption and come out the other end bigger and better, but I don’t think we’ve even begun to see how media economics are going to be ridden over rough-shod in the coming years.

Already, online is eating into newspaper revenues, right? In response to that, newspapers all over the globe are sacking reporters. Which will impact their quality at a time when their under the greatest competitive threat of their existence. Which means less readers, less revenue, less reporters, less quality and so on the cycle goes.

Meanwhile at the Edge, microeconomics are building steam. Micropublishers are being armed with better, cheaper tools that enable them to build sites not dissimiliar to the big boys. Sacked journalists are hitting out on their own and breaking the news on blogs. Blogs are being used to post classifieds, job vacancies, and so on. And the only real thread that’s running through it all is that NOBODY’S making any real money!

So be careful, Rupert. You may have hit one home run with MySpace but you’re only at the bottom of the first. There’s a very good chance, that the beasts that you’re building could prove to be your very own Frankenstein.

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