Enter MySpace
eBay is more than a brand, It is a marketplace. So is Google. So, to some extent, is iPod. Need proof? Entire businesses are being set up around these marketplaces. They are creating their own economies. In the auction space, examples include US-based iSold it, Germany's dropshop and the UK's newly funded Auctioning4u. Google's list is too long to mention. Just think: AdSense. iPod is becomming a cottege industry.
Now, enter MySpace.
Pete Cashmore writes:
DatingAnyone helps you track the dating status of people on your MySpace friends list, and presumably catch them on the rebound. When there’s a change in your friend’s status, you’re sent an email alert. The service doesn’t log in as you - it simply sends out a bot to grab the status info from the profile pages. Surprisingly, DatingAnyone isn’t the only player in this space - a more lightweight service called SingleStat.us does exactly the same thing. However, SingleStat.us charges a one-time fee of $3.95 for notifications, while DatingAnyone is free. On a similar note, newly-launched Stalkerati lets you search for a person’s name across multiple services - social networks, blogs and image search. This isn’t feeding the MySpace beast - it’s more like leeching off it. But these services all add value, so hopefully MySpace won’t feel the need to throttle them or (worse still) build an in-house version.
Steve calls it The MySpace Economy, and I like it.
The chart below (from ComScore's report on Technorati's traffic) shows the "meteoric rise" of the blog search aggregator. The equally meteoric rise of MySpace is what is fueling Technorati's growth.
This symbiotic economic situation is both good and bad. Good, because both businesses are obviously doing very well. Bad, because as an early user of Technorati, I can tell you that it ain't what it used to be. I was wondering what slowed down their indexing and has made their results less interesting. Once again, enter MySpace.
Here is Arrington's write-up on SingleStat.us. Business Opportunity interviews dev and entrepreneur Jackson Miller about SingleStat.us. Ed Kohler discusses SingleStat.us and FeedYes.com.
Technorati Tags: social.networks, myspace, startups
Thursday, June 08, 2006
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