MSNBC joins MySpace to combat the Facebook-ABC alliance
As many of the large media groups recognize the sway that social networking giants like MySpace and Facebook have on a large constituency of participants, some of them have started buddying up with those groups to gain more publicity as well as support. MSNBC is the latest to jump on the popularity train, joining MySpace to deliver news content to MySpace users.
According to Yahoo! News, MSNBC is specifically teaming up with MySpace to deliver coverage of “Decision ’08,” MSNBC’s sexy term for American presidential election proceedings. Users will be able to access video and text content of such names at MSNBC like Chris Matthews and Tim Russert.
However, the whole News Corp. gang isn’t showing up to play; though MSNBC, NBC, and MSNBC.com will be participating in the partnership, affiliated cronies Fox, The New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal won’t have any hand in the initiative.
For those who didn’t know, Facebook, which is the current alpha dog of the social networking pack, has already partnered with ABC to deliver something very similar last November. It would seem that neither MySpace nor MSNBC wanted to feel left out of the social networking election proceedings.
The fact of the matter is that MSNBC probably won’t see the type of hype that ABC is (if any) with Facebook, because of the infatuation most college students have with Facebook. Though the college demographic is certainly significant in the upcoming election, undoubtably most youthful users who are interested in informed voting are more apt participants in Facebook, not MySpace.
Still, adding media affiliations and content can only help MySpace’s failing fight in the social-networking battle. Though big-named partnerships and new content can be good, MySpace might be better off cleaning house and starting from a blank slate, as opposed to adding more clutter to an already migraine-inducing user interface.
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