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JULY 29, 2005
MySpace: WhoseSpace? [Page 2 of 2] Q: How do you take advantage of this deal without destroying what MySpace has built? A: We're smart enough to know the areas where we're dumb and find other people people who are smart to help us. The last thing we're going to do is screw up what Tom [Anderson] and Chris DeWolfe have built. They're very smart, and we're going to continue to let them do what they do. They have tapped into the mind-set, the tribal nature of the Web. We know sports and news, but they know social networking, and we're getting the best guys out there. Q: But you must have some ideas about how Fox and MySpace can work together. What will they be? A: We will probably come up with hundreds of ideas. If it makes sense, we'll do it. But it won't be us at Fox saying, "Here's a premiere of a new TV show. Put it up on MySpace." Part of the beauty of this deal is that users can tell us what's cool. Or we can use it to help figure out what the Next Big Thing is, and we can develop some traditional media properties around that. Q: Will your rivals in the media market be able to market and advertise on MySpace, as they do now? A: Yes, MySpace can still sell to other media companies, absolutely. The minute you try to just sell Fox stuff, you will ruin the brand. Q: How do you envision this site evolving over the next few years? A: Chris and Tom and their team really believe this can be a lifestyle portal, and we agree. Q: News Corp. has a reputation as a politically conservative company. Will MySpace be at odds with the company's culture? Is this sort of an odd pairing? Will you impose more controls? A: We certainly don't want to do something that's illegal or in bad taste. But having said that, MySpace's success is based on free speech, and that's a great thing. We don't know how much we can control it. That's the beauty of MySpace. And I'm not sure it's true that News Corp. is a conservative company. Fox is the edgiest broadcast network out there. If you look back over the last 10 years, no one has pushed the envelope more than Fox. We pushed it with reality TV. We have done shows like The Simpsons and The Family Guy, 24, Nip Tuck, Over There, and Rescue Me. Those are really edgy shows. When it comes to news operations, we own a lot. Some are liberal and some are conservative.
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