Justin Timberlake Buys Myspace With Specific Media

Justin Timberlake has teamed up with Californian digital agency Specific Media to purchase music social network Myspace for $35m, just 6% of the $580m News Corp paid for the service in 2004.

This morning, Music Week confirmed the story and quoted Timberlake as saying:

[He] wanted to take an active role in the development of the site as a place “where fans can go to interact with their favourite entertainers”

Specific Media’s chief exec Tim Vanderhook said of the purchase:

“Myspace is a recognized leader that has pioneered the social media space. The company has transformed the ways in which audiences discover, consume and engage with content online”

The acquisition will also see a reduction in staff, according to outgoing CEO Mike Jones:

“In conjunction with the deal, we are conducting a series of restructuring initiatives, including a significant reduction in our workforce. I will assist Specific with the transition over the next two months before departing my role as Myspace CEO.”

This appears to be a vanity purchase, with little obvious direction indicated for the future of the platform. The once golden child of the social media revolution is now a lumbering overweight player in the music sharing scene, surpassed by hundreds of new alternatives.

As an artist, when it comes to sharing music there are other options for attracting and engaging with your audience, Myspace just doesn’t cut it any more.

What JT and his cohorts will do with Myspace remains to be seen, but I cannot help but think this may be the final nail in the already lead heavy coffin of the once pioneering and career making platform.

Foursquare Badge Crawl

4sq Badge Crawl is a great little application for Foursquare badge collectors who are scratching their heads at just where they need to check in to earn their next prize.

By giving the app access to your account through the usual OAuth login, it plots where you should go going to get the core Foursquare badges.

As an example, here’s what my plan looks like (click on the image to get a bigger version):

To the left, there’s a guide of what badges you’re missing and how many more times you need to check in to a similar venue to capture the badge.

The app shows you the shortest route on a map to the right so you can work out how best you can spend that free morning or afternoon.

What this goes to show, badge collecting aside, is that given the freedom of data and an innovative technology community, an (wait for it, buzz word alert) ecosystem can freely develop around maturing platforms or data sources.

This sort of approach to identifying what data can tell us and how it can help us, provides a the end user with a more interactive experience. We’re not *just* checking in any more and developers know it – what’s fantastic is that Foursquare freely let them go about their business, for now.

What would you like to see created on top of the existing Foursquare data streams?

About.me Teams With Klout

Online identity hub About.me announced today their partnership with online influence estimation tool Klout.

The idea behind the partnership is to help About.me users demonstrate their online influence on their profiles.

It is also designed to give About.me users, of whom there are 750,000, better access to the data that helps to show just how engaged, influential and authoritative you are perceived to be online.

This is an interesting move by both companies. The Internet influence analysis conundrum we’re continuing to face won’t be answered by this, but, it’s a cool integration of a successful analysis tool and a neat profile service.

What I really like about this collaboration is that it shows how two young companies can work together to try and create a marriage of services that try to answer one industry challenge.

You can read more about the coming together on the About.me blog.

Digital Culture Axis

Digital Culture is the manifestation of a series of outputs that are designed to create an outcome. When all these different outcomes crash together we get a behaviour: Digital Culture.

To try and demonstrate how each of these outputs is influenced, I’ve created a diagram/infographic/pretty picture, and i’ve named it, rather pretentiously, the Digital Culture Axis.

I believe there are four key players in the distribution of outputs that affect the outcome, and each of these groups has less control over the first output than the one before:

Groups

Brands

These are the folks that want to interact and engage in order to create an outcome: a change in behaviour, increase of sales, sharing of information and education.

Agencies

Hired by the brands, agencies look to utilise a brand’s properties for maximum effect, helping to shape ideas and producing an output that is disseminated.

Consumers

Consumers are the people who the agencies are trying to reach, on behalf of the brand. They control what happens with the output once it is put out into the open.

Third Party Creatives

Culture jammers, eco-sphere creators and makers of cool stuff. Third Party Creatives are the guys who see consumers interacting with an output and look to do something different to or with that output, with no input from a brand or agency.

I’ve indicated this increasing filtration of output in order of dark to light blue.

Each of these groups has, to a lesser or greater extent, an effect over elements that interact with the output. This is indicated by the position of each element in relation to each group.

So, for example, a brand has more influence over owned properties (such as a website) than an agency – the agency role is to advise, but ultimately the brand will make the final call. However, an agency can have a slightly greater influence over the design and build elements, making recommendations on what is best practice and what technologies are most suited to the objectives of the website.

Elements

Owned Properties

A brand has various destinations online that they control, their website, social network profiles and blog, for example.

Design

Aligned with the vision of the brand, an agency can have a little say over what a website looks like, but it will be ultimately decided by how the brand wants to present itself.

Build

The agency will have a strong say in what technologies are used to create a website, but is again constrained by how the brand wants to portray itself. Remember: a cool HTML5 website might not be best for your corporate presence.

SEO

The agency will start to have a strong control over SEO, advising on the right language to use, developing a tone of voice and putting it into action in correspondence and content.

Communications

Here, the agency should have sole control, steered by the objectives of the brand, it is the agency who will execute and build relationship with consumers for the brand.

Advertising

The agency will know the brand’s audience and will therefore have done its research into what makes them tick.

Search

Knowing how consumers search and behave online means that agencies can tailor their output accordingly to ensure the maximum effect for content dissemination.

Content

Consumers read, listen and watch what they want. It is they who influence most the content that is produced and whether it is successful or not.

Sharing

Brands and agencies can help the content or idea sharing process, but ultimately they cannot control it – consumers will send links to their favourite Internet things, not what they are told to send by brands or agencies.

Consumption

Consumers will create, share or take-in what they are being shown and decide whether to retain that information. It is this action that influences third party creatives who will look to make things happen…

Non-Owned Properties

The non-owned property space encompasses the visualisation of data, the creation of new tools to better consume content and alternative uses for that content (think Tweetdeck or Sharemyplaylists.com)

The aim of this exercise is to spark a little bit of debate and to put some thinking down, so let me know what you think in the comments section below.

How to get a job in social media: 3 tips

Getting a job in social media should not be as daunting as you may think.

It’s graduation season in the UK and as such, the newly examined will be looking for their first job, perhaps in social media and digital communications.

Here’s my five tips for finding that perfect digital role:

Use Twitter and Linkedin

Both Twitter and Linkedin are fantastic resources that you should be using to their potential. Setup Twitter searches to keep an eye on who’s looking for grads – key search terms are likely to be “grad + social media”, “hiring + AAE”, “Hiring + AE”.

Similarly, follow the firms you want to work for on Linkedin and look for the folks that work with them and start to have a look at thier activity to identify opportunities to engage with them and monitor for job opportunities.

Know who’s doing what

You’ve got to show a curiosity and desire to learn if you want to develop into a good digital comms professional. Keep ahead of other candidates by reading about what’s going on in the digital world, but also outside of it. It helps to be able to apply that digital brain of yours to real life events too.

Be positive and stay cool

A lot of digital firms have a strong work ethic – they also have a chilled demeanour. It’s important to stay relaxed and play to your strengths when you’re courting these guys. Be chirpy, inquisitive and keep what you say genuine. If you’re a chancer, you’ll be spotted a mile away, so keep your feet on the ground!

But above all remember: no serious digital firm will take you seriously if you’re not involved in the digital space in one capacity or another – you don’t have to be a prolific tweeter, but having an understanding of the platforms and how they can be used by brands is a great help.

What would you recommend to the folks who are looking to get in to digital comms and social media?