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Television Media The Internet

Will MySpace Disrupt Television? 146

Posted by Zonk from the my-aye-aye dept.
newsblaze writes "In the Media space, the internet has been threatening to be a highly disruptive technology for some time now. So far it has done quite a number on newspapers, who still don't understand the internet. There are a lot of people who like to have the paper in their hands, though, so newspapers are holding on. Television has no such ties to a physical medium. When Murdoch bought Myspace, I wondered how long it would be before he either found something to do with it — or gave up. Now it seems Murdoch has found a way to leverage his position, and put a massive squeeze on television. How far can he take this — and what will be the result?"
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Will MySpace Disrupt Television? More

Will MySpace Disrupt Television?

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  • There's nothing worth watching on TV. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21, 2007 @04:49PM (#19940683)
    Not a lot more online. Let's get out more.
    • There's nothing worth watching on TV

      So MySpace will disrupt television then.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by toddestan ( 632714 )
        So MySpace will disrupt television then.

        TV is killing itself. MySpace has little to do with it, it just happens to be around.

    • Re:There's nothing worth watching on TV. (Score:5, Funny)

      by sudo ( 194998 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @04:54PM (#19940707) Homepage
      ... he says that while spending endless hours sitting in front of the 'puter waiting for First Post

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by The13thMonkey ( 1105729 )
      There's nothing worth watching on TV because Murdoch owns a lot of the airwaves.
      • Nah, I don't think that is true. Even when there is nothing worth watching on the TV in the stations he owns, it doesn't do anything to the other stations that aren't worth watching. I mean common, 265 channels with satellite and some cable packages and nothing interesting or good to watch that you haven't already seen!

        There just isn't that many good things on and they repeat the hell of what is. Even the news repeats the hell out of things. You find stories on the one interesting item all week if not all m

    • Re:There's nothing worth watching on TV. (Score:5, Informative)

      by urikkiru ( 801560 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @05:03PM (#19940789) Journal
      The last time that I moved apartments, it was to move in with a friend of mine. We talked about it briefly, and decided we didn't want cable. Oh, we have a cable *modem*, but no actual broadcast television stations. Honestly, I have not ever missed it, and it's been about 3 years now. Oh, there's the occasional show that I want to see, and I try an episode online here or from a friend's DVD collection there. If I like it, I rent or buy it, and watch it. Or just watch it at a friends house. I watch a bit of Anime now and then as well.

      By and large however, TV is really no longer a way I spend a lot of my time. I really, really enjoy the lack of advertising bombarding me in my life.

      Just my 2 cents.

      • Re:There's nothing worth watching on TV. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by fotbr ( 855184 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @06:00PM (#19941203) Journal
        Not to mention how much time it frees up for other things. More coding, web surfing, photography, painting, writing, woodworking, hunting, fishing, restoring an old car/truck/motorcycle, whatever your choice of hobbies may be.

        Or you could just spend all the former TV time playing WoW.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Acer500 ( 846698 )

          Or you could just spend all the former TV time playing WoW.
          LOL. When I moved alone, I had to choose my bills wisely, and chose not to have Cable TV and get ADSL instead (which was actually cheaper).

          Now I spend enough money on Magic: The Gathering that I could probably afford cable with a few extra programming packages besides :P

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dircha ( 893383 )
          "Not to mention how much time it frees up for other things."

          Right on. I haven't owned a television in I believe 6.5 years now. I also rarely rent or go to movies.

          I usually scan through and watch some of the high rated YouTube videos in the evening. Some of those are short clips from television, yes, but I couldn't imagine watching the entire program just for those few moments of humor; I'll let someone else filter out the cruft for me. And it's always on my schedule. If I can't get it when I want it, not in

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by potat0man ( 724766 )
          I gave up tv and WoW too. I spend my weekends now pushing a hoop down the street with a stick.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by camperslo ( 704715 )
        Heavy amounts of advertising is certainly a major force in driving people away from traditional tv.
        I believe the tv rules were similar to radio. IIRC, years ago at license renenwal time stations would commit to a certain amount of public affairs programming and a maximum hourly number of minutes of advertising.
        The advertising cap didn't apply two weeks of the year. Typically stations would run more during the December holiday period, and in election years right before an election.

        It didn't really occur to

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by dosius ( 230542 )
          A friend of mine has started using one of those webcam repeaters to simulcast Cartoon Network.

          The stream is a plain old wmv9 and can be played with MPlayer. And everything that can be played with MPlayer can be *ripped* with MPlayer...

          I'd like to see some full-time TV-to-Internet repeaters fire up around the world, it'll be interesting. xD

          -uso.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nwbvt ( 768631 )

        People giving up TV (or just cable) and deciding they actually like its absence is nothing new and existed well before anyone could claim the Internet was killing it off.

        And as for "lack of advertising bombarding" you, I'm guessing thats only because you have a good ad blocked installed in your browser. Well, if you have a PVR, you can skip ads on TV as well. And there are plenty of ads online, and as ad blockers become more and more common, advertisers are going to become more and more creative and ef

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Leebert ( 1694 )

        Oh, we have a cable *modem*, but no actual broadcast television stations.
        Try plugging the cable into the TV. You may be surprised that you actually do have cable TV.

        (I only use it to watch C-SPAN!)
      • I think Murdoch is missing the point. What makes MySpace (ugh) and other sites like YouTube popular isn't JUST the fact that you're sitting at your computer- it's that the media is produced by thousands and thousands of different content creators. I believe that the days where one centralized entity is making all of the production decisions are coming to an end. Individual control aside, this new breed of content is quintessentially interactive. You can talk to the creators, share with them, befriend them,
        • "I think Murdoch is missing the point."

          You are telling this to the guy who built his considerable empire using computers to rip the guts out of the old fleet street printing industry? The guy who has Bush kissing one cheek of his arse and Blair kissing the other while Clinton gives him a blow job? Rupert only ever buys something if it can serve him financially or politically, if myspace fails to deliver the "next generation" he will kill it.

          "Traditional media just can't compete."

          I don't think he ca

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by symbolic ( 11752 )
            I'm not suggesting that MySpace will fail - I'm suggesting that this application of MySpace may fail. Let's not forget that Murdoch didn't build MySpace, he bought it. If you've been around YouTube lately, there's a lot of buzz about the way that the corporate suits at Google are making decisions that are really starting to piss people off. They act like they are immune to any fallout from their own incompetence at community management. What makes this whole equation very interesting is that unlike most oth
            • So they go somewhere else, like I said "he will kill it" (and then go and buy/subvert whatever else pops up). I also fail to see how such massive sites can exist without some sort of coporate structure behind it to pay for the bandwidth, storage, code monkeys, etc.

              I have no interest in MySpace except for the fact it is a very succesfull site, as for YouTube there are only so many ways you can watch someone have mentos coming out of their nose before it becomes as boring as dog-shit, this [youtube.com] is the kind of s

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kwirl ( 877607 )
        Ok....I'm curious how this was marked informative instead of funny :P Someone came on to slashdot, and stated that as a regular internet user they enjoyed the lack of advertising....As I type this reply, I am looking at an ad for Barracuda spam firewalls (btw, they mention free evaluation units available!) I demand a modification of the 'informative' status until he presents clear and precise information on how he has managed to avoid being attacked by advertising online! :P My actual only comment on tha

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by xXShadowstormXx ( 939073 )
      Outside, you mean? Are you crazy? GTFO with your analog fun!
    • I watched the last season on Mypace's 24 Page [myspace.com]. Great quality video; few ads; updated within a few hours of the broadcast airing. I work night shift so I always missed the regular broadcast. Having it available online on demand was awesome.


      Yeah, I think more of THAT could disrupt TV. Not your stinking, Javascript-laden, Flash-blasting, Emo shrine. But Kiefer's rocks!

      • that was less about myspace tv and much, much more about fox tv leveraging their myspace bandwidth to do their on demand, which is lakc luster at best. The quality is good. the amount of content fox puts online is horrific. i was telling a friend about hell's kitchen and that it was on fox on demand. he couldn't find it. fox does a grreat job at hiding it from their network tv site, only linking it from an innocuous "on demand" text link in a drop down menu.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by saskboy ( 600063 )
      "Not a lot more online"

      That's why I add to it with my daily blogging ;-)

      And also why I started The Teleban [abandonedstuff.com].
  • Television is disrupted already. Too much honor for Murderock.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by scottrocket ( 1065416 )
      ...and I've noticed a lot of MySpace references "worked into" various television scripts-cahoots or buzz scripting?

  • newsblaze? (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Holy shit. My head is still hurting from trying to read that "article." The whole thing is filled with incomplete sentences and fragments of thoughts. A note to Ms Strasbaugh: Take some writing classes. A note to NewsBlaze: Hire some qualified editors. As long as there is writing this bad out there, the established print media has nothing to fear from "Citizen Journalists." As for the "content" of the article, MySpace has struck a deal for a show that has no established viewer base at this time (simply bec

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by deftcoder ( 1090261 )
      I read the first "sentence" (i.e. a collection of sentences strewn together with commas) and saw the "it's" at the end. At that point, I closed the tab the article was loaded in.

      Please, for the love of $DEITY, don't let people who can't speak English write articles.
    • I tried to read the article and thought I was just spacing out, but after reading your comments I went back and realized I was having trouble reading the article because it was written in pigeon english. Thank you.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tsa ( 15680 )
      I thought it was just me not being fully awake. I tried to read the article, then I thought "WT...?" I skimmed it the second time and stumbled upon the info it tried to get across.

  • 'The Bigger Picture' (Score:5, Funny)

    by slughead ( 592713 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @05:02PM (#19940775) Homepage Journal
    Many people who would normally watch 6 hours of TV a day are now using myspace for a similar amount of time.

    I'd say myspace has already disrupted television and will continue to do so, since a large portion of hours of television watched are these kids who are now using myspace.

    Comparing the two, it's hard to say which is worse. Customizing your myspace and/or writing in a blog can help one practice essential computer savvy and writing skills, whereas TV has the benefit of not being plagued with emos.

    It also could be argued that myspace 'comments'--which take up most of the average myspace user's time--actually diminish writing skills and intelligence (seriously, read somebody's comments; anybody).

    Now if you'll excuse me, I have to comb my hair over my forehead at an angle and take subtly sad photos of myself from a downward angle and blog about how 'indy rock' (emo) is 'the only joy in my desilate, sole-crushing, nitemarish, interminible, bleak, black, life.' [sic.]

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Ma8thew ( 861741 )
      You clearly have no clue what you're talking about. Saying Indie Rock is analogous to 'Emo' is like saying Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club is Death Metal.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by slughead ( 592713 )
        You clearly have no clue what you're talking about. Saying Indie Rock is analogous to 'Emo' is like saying Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club is Death Metal.

        "Indy Rock" technically means ANY music from the 'Rock' super-genre that is signed to a label not directly owned by the handful of big record companies.

        I know a great assortment of emos, and trust me, they all call their 'screamo' and slow, sensitive cry-baby emo rock 'indie' (indy). This is sometimes even contrary to the publisher of the music; somet

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward
          And all this time I thought Indianapolis had a huge music scene...

        • Indie Rock (Score:2, Informative)

          by mwigmani ( 558450 )

          "Indy Rock" technically means ANY music from the 'Rock' super-genre that is signed to a label not directly owned by the handful of big record companies.

          While I agree the term 'indie' started from there, it's evolved to something different, and is closer to the term 'underground' than anything else. In musical terms (as opposed to film, in which the term indie has also changed over time) 'Indie Rock' is really an umbrella term (comparable to 'Electronica') that encompasses a variety of sub-genres such as l

        • "Indy" is pretty much the same thing as "Alternative" nowadays. It used to mean something - now people slap it onto anything they think it might apply to.

    • Fixed that for you (Score:5, Funny)

      by PCM2 ( 4486 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @05:34PM (#19941035) Homepage
      Many people who would normally watch 6 hours of TV a day are now using Slashdot for a similar amount of time.

      I'd say Slashdot has already disrupted television and will continue to do so, since a large portion of hours of television watched are these dorks who are now using Slashdot.

      Comparing the two, it's hard to say which is worse. Customizing your Slashdot homepage and/or writing in a blog can help one practice essential computer savvy and writing skills, whereas TV has the benefit of not being plagued with nerds.

      It also could be argued that Slashdot 'comments'--which take up most of the average Slashdot user's time--actually diminish writing skills and intelligence (seriously, read somebody's comments; anybody).

      Now if you'll excuse me, I have to comb my hair over my forehead at an angle and take subtly sad photos of myself from a downward angle and blog about how 'Linux' (gnu) is 'the only joy in my desilate, sole-crushing, nitemarish, interminible, bleak, black, life.' [sic.]

      • It also could be argued that Slashdot 'comments'--which take up most of the average Slashdot user's time--actually diminish writing skills and intelligence (seriously, read somebody's comments; anybody).

        Could be worse. The comments on Digg are so moronic, other peoples' stupidity can cause passive damage to your own brain cells.

        This has been proven in "OMG!!!! The coolest article EVER! You must see this!!!!!1111" [digg.com]

      • Many people who would normally watch 6 hours of TV a day are now using Slashdot for a similar amount of time.
        I disagree. If I wasn't posting on Slashdot, I'd be doing something productive, not watching TV.

      • Slashdot's comments are for the most part written in literate English. That's the main difference.
    • If people are fleeing TV for myspace (or slashdot, or youtube, etc.), how would the mainstream media become aware of this? How do they collect their ratings? Do they still have people fill out cards indicating what they watched at various times? Doesn't the method of picking these people tend to exclude those who most likely do turn to the internet?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jZnat ( 793348 ) *
        Nielson Families is one common example of how TV ratings are typically done. People are basically polled at random and asked to keep a journal of what they watch. Using the power of statistics, the numbers are blown to the proportion of people actually watching TV, and they have their ratings.

        Recently, they've been trying to figure out how to survey other entertainment forms as well due to the fact that they chip away at TV's expense.
        • I've always wondered if the Nielson ratings take into account the people who don't watch TV. Are their random picks only from the lists of subscribers to cable and satellite? If they find out I don't watch TV would they still ask me to keep a log of nothing, or would they move onto the next person? It always seemed to me that they overestimate as they assume everyone watches TV, and they can extrapolate their random sampling to the entire population.

          I would think that polling digital cable/satellite boxe

    • Customizing your myspace and/or writing in a blog can help one practice essential computer savvy and writing skills

      Customizing your myspace makes you computer savvy? Dude, if you have a myspace account that you're serious about, you're probably not computer savvy at all. Or something. And here I was, thinking that finding heap overflows in OS libraries and rooting the occasional federal government web-server was a good way to stay "computer savvy".

      *sits on bed and cries*

  • I never thought I'd say this, but... (Score:4, Funny)

    by evanbd ( 210358 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @05:04PM (#19940795)

    The linked article actually has worse editing than the slashdot summary. What is the world coming to?

    I suppose asking the slashdot editors to link to high quality writeups is a little far-fetched, so I won't even bother.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by BKX ( 5066 )
      What's really funny is that I read the article for the bad spelling and poor grammar and I was surprised to see none. Article's writing was stuccato. It lacked articles.

      So what was wrong it then?

      The last paragraphs. Entirely composed of sentence fragments. Random words. Sucked.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by evanbd ( 210358 )
        Sentence fragments, missing commas, extra commas, redundant phrases, its vs. it's... And that's just in the first two paragraphs. I stopped reading after that.

      • What's really funny is that I read the article for the bad spelling and poor grammar and I was surprised to see none. Article's writing was stuccato. It lacked articles. So what was wrong it then? The last paragraphs. Entirely composed of sentence fragments. Random words. Sucked.

        In other words, it was alot like a James Ellroy novel!

        Okay, seriously now, the excitement and exaggerated claims on that article combined with the lack of focus and structure lead me to believe that the article was written by a high school student. Well that's the wonderful nature of the net. Everyone has their voice and we have to filter out these type of stories from interesting and well written stories. oh wait I thought that was what Slashdot was for...

  • Onward into the Past! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gelfling ( 6534 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @05:07PM (#19940835) Homepage Journal
    I mean who the hell is going to watch game shows and reality shows on their laptop? If anything, leveraging MySpace means that TV eventually turns into YouTube length 'segments' e.g. the average television show will now be 10 minutes long and sponsored by one ad, just like TV was in the late 1940's early 50's

    • For some reason I read "myspace" in the title as "youtube," since it seems a more natural comparison. Anyways, in repsonse to your comment, I do think the Interent with disrupt TV, but I don't think laptops will have much to do with. Not until more people have broadband-connected PVRs in their livingrooms can the revolution be televised (I just had to say that). But it will happen.
    • I just use video-out to show it on my TV. I've watched shows on all of the network sites. None of them are perfect, but the commercial breaks are only one commercial long.
    • Ah, TV in the 50's.
      Jackie Gleason broke his leg just moments into his show, doing a little jig across the stage. It was live. He fell, just laid there, then a hand reached under the curtain from backstage, and dragged him under the curtain and out of sight of the audience. He was injured, but they did not say much about it. The rest of the show was pretty much a blank, no commercials to run, and we had to wait until the next show came on, in about 20 minutes or so. The next week, when his show returned, the

  • MySpace? Not really. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Yvan256 ( 722131 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @05:13PM (#19940881) Homepage Journal
    I don't think of MySpace has a competitor to anything. Of course, all I know about MySpace is that's it's for personal blogs and such. It's only used by people who want to put their lives on the web, and mostly teens. Then again I've never even visited myspace.com, so what do I know.

    If there's any real competitor to television, it's two-fold because it's on two levels: television networks (who buy/make shows) and show creators themselves (professional vs amateur).

    1. It's the beginning of the end for "networks". The iTunes Store has the possibility of becoming a direct distributor between content creators and viewers/listeners. No need to pay for all those crappy "channels packages". I'll even mention the stupid fact that you're forced to get the "basic package" just so you can pay for the "extra packages" from which you only want two or three channels out of eight. It would also prevent networks from killing shows. The best example is the near-death of Family Guy, which Fox had neglected so much at the beginning that it's almost a miracle it survived. It would also prevent networks from continuing to poor cash into long-dead series like The Simpsons. Yes, Homer is funny, but let's get real, they're nearly two decades old now. We get a good episode for every ten crappy ones.

    2. YouTube. Given that Google now control YouTube, and via such partnerships such as putting YouTube on the iPhone and the AppleTV, allows regular people to reach other people quite easily and (more importantly) beyond computer-only access. And now that YouTube is switching to H.264, the only thing preventing others to do the same thing as Apple is access rights to YouTube's servers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Yvan256 ( 722131 )
      I don't think of MySpace as a competitor to anything.

      sorry.

    • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by Jah-Wren Ryel ( 80510 )

      I don't think of MySpace has a competitor to anything. Of course, all I know about MySpace is that's it's for personal blogs and such. It's only used by people who want to put their lives on the web, and mostly teens. Then again I've never even visited myspace.com, so what do I know.

      You really ought to learn about something before pontificating in public about it.

      Just myself, I've found 3 new-to-me musicians and downloaded their music from myspace.

      While myspace has all those boring blogs on it, it has also managed to become a central location for all kinds of artists. Musicians, painters, even music/movie/book/etc publishers who aren't otherwise part of the murdoch empire, have made myspace pages central to their online presence.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Yvan256 ( 722131 )

        You really ought to learn about something before pontificating in public about it.

        That's why I said "I don't think", "all I know" and especially "then again I've never even visited myspace.com, so what do I know."

        And your comment only re-enforces what I thought: MySpace is only blogs and stuff. It doesn't matter if there's talented people putting their work online, it's still only blogs. I'm not gonna watch their stuff sitting in front of a fucking computer screen.

        Sorry about the "fucking computer screen",

        • Almost every sight on my space looks like it was designed by a 4th grader. And each page has a different song playing in the background so opening the pages in different tabs is a no-no. Imagine cookie cutter pages with floating text on stationary background that consist of some picture tiles a thousand times over the page. It seems the best way to stand out is to make your page more annoying.

          I have a few friends who use MySpace because they think it is or makes them cool or something. These are people who

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by jZnat ( 793348 ) *
            So it's like the new version of Geocities/Angelfire/etc.? Is that what you're saying?

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Khaed ( 544779 )
              That's a pretty apt comparison, in my experience. Most Myspace pages look like they came from 1998 on Geocities, and they're possible causes of eye-strain.

              There may be a lot of artists or whatever on there, but there certainly aren't many goddamn web designers. At least none that I'd ever hired for anything.

        • That's why I said "I don't think", "all I know" and especially "then again I've never even visited myspace.com, so what do I know."

          Which was precisely my point - if you know enough to say that you don't know WTF you are talking about, why are you talking in the first place?

          And your comment only re-enforces what I thought: MySpace is only blogs and stuff. It doesn't matter if there's talented people putting their work online, it's still only blogs.

          You only hear what you want to. If these are [myspace.com] just [myspace.com] blogs [myspace.com] then so are http://www.mgm.com/ [mgm.com] and http://www.fox.com/ [fox.com] and most other 'corporate' media sites.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Yvan256 ( 722131 )
            Hey buddy, it's called having an opinion. Get a grip.

            As for MGM and Fox, it's called websites, not blogs.

            Geeze.

            • Hey buddy, it's called having an opinion. Get a grip.
              Lol! What you have sir, is a guess .
              Having an opinion requires you at least know something about the subject.

              As for MGM and Fox, it's called websites, not blogs.
              Precisely my point. Just as the mgm and fox websites are not blogs,
              neither are the myspace pages for Film Movement, M.I.A., nor Twisted Records.

    • Of course, all I know about MySpace is that's it's for personal blogs and such. It's only used by people who want to put their lives on the web, and mostly teens. Then again I've never even visited myspace.com, so what do I know.

      I go to mySpace for bands: They put samples and tour dates.

      Here, do you like horror punk and/or psychobilly? Then enjoy Zombina and the Skeletones! [myspace.com]
      And I found these guys through Guitar Hero: Freezepop [myspace.com] (stream only, no sample free MP3s).
      MTV is dead, long live MySpace!

    • Better example than the near-death of Family Guy would be the one season run of Firefly.

  • Interesting take... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Manuka ( 4415 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @05:15PM (#19940903) Homepage
    ...but I find it really hard to take seriously any news outlet that can make so many spelling and grammatical mistakes in a single story. Apparently the proofreader/fact checker has gone the way of the printed newspaper.
    • Thanks, I'm not sure what caused that. I had to go to another office to fix it because my connection was breaking up today. All those errors were deleted characters.
      • Are you serious? If you're the person who wrote or edited this article, and you think it is "fixed" in its current form, you need to go find another career. At least please go study the topics of proper sentence structure, the meaning of its vs. it's, and how to communicate clearly. Perhaps you could sign up for a writing class.

        Question: Which of the following are properly formed sentences?

        "Unlike traditional stations on air, this time jumping right to online shows."
        "Of course provided the shows are any goo
  • While it's true that Murdoch is in somewhat of a unique position of both owning a largely used website, and a TV station, I question what he'll really be able to do with it. Certainly other stations (NBC and ABC, for example) have some of the content online. It's not well done, and it still a poor replica of what they're doing on the actual broadcast. Though still much better than other stations, such as Comedy Central (which probably should win awards for worse design ever).

    The current state of Myspace doe
    • While it's true that Murdoch is in somewhat of a unique position of both owning a largely used website, and a TV station...

      Nah. The same organization owning a big Internet site and a big content source isn't new. That's what the famous AOL/TimeWarner merger was all about ten or so years ago. Remember how well that worked out?

      I question what he'll really be able to do with it.

      Yeah, I would too. This sounds more like dangerous overreach than the Rly Kewl Synergy the breathless teenybopper article suggests
  • The question shouldn't be "will MySpace disrupt TV?", it's "How much more will MySpace disrupt TV than streaming video already has?". The current leader in the "most televisions staked" vampire hunter contest has to be YouTube...
    • I'd say the real question is: "will anything disrupt television more than Bit Torrent already has?" Millions of people now get their television with a high-speed connection and a Torrent client. Heck, you can go to any major Torrent site and grab high-quality rips of all the current TV shows. As long as you don't mind giving up on-demand video, and having to queue your downloads for later viewing, you don't need a cable bill. Maybe that would be different if the major cable outfits offered a quality service
      • As long as you don't mind giving up on-demand video, and having to queue your downloads for later viewing, you don't need a cable bill.

        Well, you're either downloading that over cable modem, or you're downloading it over DSL. You're watching TV over the airwaves, over cable, or (increasingly) over DSL. You're paying for it either way... and they will without question adjust the relative costs of data and video over broadband to match demand and usage.

        All they need to do is to get the advertising back in, by

  • Huh? (Score:3, Funny)

    by bryan1945 ( 301828 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @05:33PM (#19941027) Journal
    "Known world wide as the ultimate spot for networking..."

    What? I thought this was the ultimate spot for 14 year olds to put up useless crap on the net.

    And great, "my so called life" and something else is going to be played via myspace. Wow, taking over the world 10 years behind at a time.

  • Television? What's that? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Stormwatch ( 703920 ) <`moc.liamtoh' `ta' `oarigogirdor'> on Saturday July 21, 2007 @05:48PM (#19941131) Homepage
    Oh, you mean the screen where I plug the game consoles?

  • My Space (Score:2, Interesting)

    by proadventurer ( 1071064 )
    The more people who use myspace or watch TV, the less people in my space - the outdoors. Thanks Murdoch, I hope you make some money!
  • That thing is the FCC. The FCC holds back broadcast technology, and in the end the medium, because it is too slow to diagnose where the market is heading and make changes to its regulations. This is done on purpose -- the FCC is provided for, and promoted, solely by those who previously controlled the distribution media like television and radio.

    Right now, we have cable and satellite for TV, and for Internet, for am majority of households and businesses. Both solutions are antiquated, and ready to be replaced. WiFi routers have proven that small-band radio hardware can be shared in relatively small spaces. All of my neighbors have routers, and we all work well together without major issues. In large urban areas, there are more problems with routers, yes, but this is the FCC's fault for not opening up the spectrum. Imagine how well broadcast technology would work if most of the currently used broadcast spectrum was unlicensed.

    The major television and radio networks are scared to death of what would happen if gigabit wireless because available in an unlicensed manner. "On-demand" would take on new meaning. Nielsen would be replaced with real-time, and accurate, statistics sold by Google Analytics or a variety of actual competitors (unlike Nielsen, who has no real competitors). Shows would make it, or break it, not just on mega-advertiser income, but also the chance to make an income based on direct viewer sponsorship (subscription), or a myriad of other income streams (AdSense, or who knows what else?).

    It is the regulation of the spectrum that is killing television and radio, as free market capitalists look for new ways to get information to those who want it. PeerCasting is amazing technology, which I already use to broadcast live church sermons to communities. It works well, so much better than public "Channel 19" a week or two later. When you can PeerCast straight to your car or your portable radio, the commercial radio stations will be dead. When you can watch one of a thousand TV shows, and become a hub for 5 or 10 others to watch it, the need for huge servers and huge pipes out of a studio will be ended. But that day won't happen with the FCC mandating frequency use to what worked 20 years ago.

    MySpace isn't the killer -- MySpace is just finding a way to be relevant using the tiny bit of wired connectivity they have available. Imagine a peercasted or torrented YouTube, shared by millions, anonymous, and unable to be regulated by the State. That's a future I'm ready for.

    • Re:Only one thing will disrupt television (in the (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fermion ( 181285 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @11:34PM (#19943059) Homepage Journal
      The thing about regulation is that allowed a business to live in a predictable environment and allows consumers to have predictable product. Much of our life is regulated, and the regulation causes problems. I can no longer awns out a million emails to random email addresses selling fake drugs and not expect some possible reprucusions. It is terribly unfair as it removes significant profit opportunities. However, there is benifit as consumers have some security in knowing that they are more likely to receive a stated product in exchange for payment.

      Other regulation, like the ones of the FCC, help distribute limited resources. In the case of broadcast radio and television, the monopoly covers a section and locality of the public airwaves.In exchange for the monopoly, the business agrees to some limite. Complaining about it is like public companies complaining about the regulation of the stock market. Companies that do not want such regulation, and want to treat the companies cash like thier own private liquid accounts, can choose to be private. There is no law forcing a company public.

      The boradcasters have been given a monopoly over the airwaves. They have given enough leeway in what to transmit. The only thing that has changed is that others have come in, and with much less public financing, created a competing system of content delivery. The broadcasters, coddled by years of monopoly status, are apparently unable to work in a free market. Sure they are less free than the paid station, but then they also have the only non subscription fee product. If they can't survive with the huge public subsidy of free bandwidth, then I can only assume that they are truly incompetent. No myspace isn't the killer. Softness from monopoly status is. Braodcast content is an extremely inefficient use of the bandwidth, and cannot support the bloated structure that seems to define most broadcast companies.

      And who really cares if broadcaster go off the air. That should be seen as a success. Privately funded enterprises killing government subsidized monopoly. Who can be against that? With the broadcasters gone, the bandwidth can be used for something else, by entrepenuers who are willing to rent the space at auction determined market value. I must say that I do not look forward to paying for radio and television, but I also realize that it might be better that continuously hearing people bitch about how unfair the rules are. Give the airwaves back to the public. Let the market decide how to use them best in the post analog world. Even the threat of such a thing will have the whiny wussy broadcast executives going to the hill and saying how absolutely happy they are with regulation.

  • Unless their custom series is a show about black eyeliner and self-mutilation, I highly doubt the majority of MySpace users will be interested.
  • It's a shame that broadcasters, more specifically, the affiliates, are having to pay an enormous amount of money to upgrade all of their equipment to broadcast in HD, when in less than 10 years "broadcasting" television will be a moot point. What is the point of all the regulation and brouhaha and money spent on what amounts to six channels worth of content? Most of the "big four" have started to put their shows for free viewing (with commercials) on their home page. I never watched one episode of "30 ro

    • Re:TV is dead (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @07:43PM (#19941859) Homepage Journal

      The biggest hurdle in "internet tv" is that ubiquitous "Black Box" that consumer electronics manufacturers have been searching for decades to decades to find. The 360 and the PS3 are the first iteration in what will be the future. The 360 is offering essentially basic cable to 360 owners this fall and I am certain that the PS3 will have something similar, especially since Sony owns a huge catalogue of films.
      Which is probably why all the gamers are keeping store shelves clear of Wii boxes and allowing those consoles to gather some dust before a sports fan feels the need to kill time between seasons with electronic reenactments of his adored teams and buys the necessary hardware for that purpose. They aren't actually game consoles, they're media hubs that happen to play games.
  • in 20 years, which is why I gave up TV. Much rather pick up a book and read as it's portable and in an SFF that fits comfortably in the hand plus it uses no power.

    • plus it uses no power.

      Aside from the solar power soaked up by the trees, the chainsaws of the loggers, the log trucks, power at the paper mill, the ink factory, the publisher, the trucks that delivered the books to the store...

  • A pretty good pile of non-sentences in a non-article about a pretty big non-story. TV will be killed by MySpace in the same way that it was killed by TiVo (only watching what the users wants?!) and by DVDs (which, with entire seasons of content being made available, was going to kill TV as opposed to increase overall viewrships), and by the VCR (content, when and where you want it?!), etc etc.

    Meaning, of course, that TV will still be around long after MySpace goes the way of Geocities and Tripod.

  • Murdoch Disrupts Everything (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MrSteveSD ( 801820 ) on Saturday July 21, 2007 @09:25PM (#19942439)
    I don't know about the impact of MySpace, but the biggest disruption of established media has been with the news. People are no longer confined to just a few news channels and papers owned by just a handful of people. Things that were possible before, such as D-Notices (where the UK media are blocked from reporting something by the government) are now quite ineffective. However, Murdoch and the big outlets do have a big web presence and we should avoid them like the plague.

    Using the UK Freedom of Information act, it has recently emerged that Tony Blair had 3 telephone conversations with Rupert Murdoch in the 10 days leading up to the invasion of Iraq. No doubt he wanted to know how much support he would get. War sells papers and increases viewing figures, so it would not have been a good business decision for Murdoch to oppose the war. Do you really want to sit there passively consuming Rupert Murdoch's political views, channelled though different newsreaders and outlets? We should be avoiding Murdoch's empire as much as possible. It's not healthy for so much of the media to be owned by so few people. Fortunately the net makes it easy to hunt around and find more independent outlets.

    If anyone is interested, the FOI request was made by Lord Avebury and it took him a long time to get the information released.
    • That is the sad part. Yes there was a time when you had 3 TV news sources to choose from. But I get the feeling that the news services where a lot more responsible and unbiased then.
      Now with many many outlets to get your news from news providers have become tabloids.
      Controversy sells. Of course with all the news services available you can find one that EXACTLY fits your world view. So the news will reinforce everything you believe and challenge nothing. That also means that it will reinforce your fears.
      T

      • That great unbiased news service you have found on line isn't unbiased. It just shares your bias.

        Bias can be a strange and nebulous thing though. For example, the practical definition of impartiality in the media seems to be relying on official sources for everything. Questioning and challenging official sources is often taken to be left-wing and biased. In fact pretty much any challenge to authority seems to be regarded that way.

        Hand in hand with bias comes the artificial notion of "balance". The problem is, things very often aren't balanced in reality, so balancing them in a report becomes qui

  • most of the tv are crap and reruns anyway.
  • I don't see Myspace being a threat to TV as much as YouTube.

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