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Making Space For MySpace: The Internet Gets A New Leader
Article Overview: Neither DeWolfe nor Anderson particularly liked authority, but in each other they found not only a friend, but somebody they also respected and with whom they could work well. After Xdrive, the company they had both been working for, ended up in bankruptcy in the dot-com bubble burst, DeWolfe and Anderson decided to go into business with each other.
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Free Download - Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson Quotes By Chris De Wolfe Tom Anderson |
Making Space For MySpace: The Internet Gets A New Leader
Neither DeWolfe nor Anderson particularly liked authority, but in each other they found not only a friend, but somebody they also respected and with whom they could work well. After Xdrive, the company they had both been working for, ended up in bankruptcy in the dot-com bubble burst, DeWolfe and Anderson decided to go into business with each other.
“We started our first company nine moths later,” recalls Anderson. “So I went from not working or doing little side jobs here and there to helping to run a company and own part of it. I don’t think that a normal business guy would have given me this kind of chance.”
DeWolfe might not have been “normal,” but he nevertheless saw something in Anderson that sparked an instant connection. The duo decided to create an Internet marketing firm. Called Response Base, the company took off. It was so successful in fact, that it was sold within a year to eUniverse for several million dollars. Although they both continued to work for the company, Anderson had bigger plans.
Anderson began thinking about online social networking, and wondered if it was going to be the next big thing. “I had looked at dating sites and niche communities like BlackPlanet, AsianAvenue, and MiGente, as well as Friendster,” he says, “and I thought, ‘They’re thinking way too small.’”
Anderson pitched the idea to DeWolfe and he was sold. It reminded him of one of his USC business papers, where he had proposed the creation of a community website called Sitegeist. He was given an A- for the idea by a professor who rarely gave out A’s of any kind. DeWolfe knew he was onto something.
In 2003, Anderson and DeWolfe launched their new site, first inviting just local bands and club owners to create profile pages and become their “friends.” Because of how it began, the two indie music lovers got to spend much of their time going to watch live music each week and talking to bands. “It was pretty much a great way to work,” recalls DeWolfe.
As it turns out, their marketing strategy was not only fun for them. It was also successful in terms of generating the publicity that they needed. “All these creative people became ambassadors for MySpace by using us as their de facto promotional platform,” says DeWolfe. “People like to talk about music, so the bands set up a natural environment to communicate.”
When a friend reminded DeWolfe that he had previously bought the domain name myspace.com (he had been toying with the idea of creating a web-hosting company), the pair had their new site name.
“Things did go remarkably easy for us,” recalls Anderson. “I can’t say we struggled for a long time; we only struggled for a month.” But that one month was a difficult time. With little traffic to their new site, Anderson began thinking, “This may not work out.” Then, one day, he says, “We this huge spike because of people telling each other. It just went crazy from there. We didn’t have this big, long struggle behind it. We put it up, and it got popular very quickly.”
So, what began as a community of creative people that Anderson and DeWolfe knew in Los Angeles quickly grew into a worldwide phenomenon simply by word of mouth. Today, MySpace is up and running in 14 different countries. That, says DeWolfe, was always their intention. “We wanted to make sure we had a huge U.S. community right from the beginning. And it was always in our first business plans to expand it internationally.”
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Free Internet Resources
- Please post any websites offering free downloads, templates, tutorials... anything helpful to the Internet user.
More particularly, things helpful to small ecommerce business owners... who utilize Web 2.0 and 3.0 technologies like social media sites (Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Wiki.)
Making Money in 2011
- Hello forum members! As we draw closer to the new year I thought it would be appropriate to change the title of our forum category "Making Money in 2010" to "Making Money in 2011" - I'm looking forward to some interesting discussions and wish everyone a prosperous New Year!
Re: My 200 post
- Well GT,
You done it again, The Leader and now you have 1003 post, wow.
Michelle and Trent, you are a winners too.
WTG friends, you are an inspiration.
Re: Facebook and Beacon - What Do You Think
- Hi ChrisH,
As a Facebook user myself, I can't say that I'm entirely surprised by Mark Zuckerberg's actions. Server costs are expensive and he's essentially sitting on a gold mine of users, so can we really blame him for "selling out" and trying to find new ways to profit?
Facebook is the top dog for now, but one day there'll be a bigger and better social networking site and one that doesn't exploit its users... it's a fact of life. MySpace surpassed Friendster, while Facebook beat out MySpace. The only question is who will step up to take down Facebook? And how soon from now?
Re: UPDATES: New Campaign! New Layout! New Ideas!
- [quote="Ringo So":2696kbgu]Trent - It's actually a sub-forum within the "Making Money in 2010" category. Please let me know if there are any troubles finding it.[/quote:2696kbgu]
Nope, still don't see it. I see the Online Businesses forum but that has been there for a long time. Is that what you mean? I don't see any Internet Marketing section.
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