Social Networking vs Social Destination

Yesterday, the MySpace crew hosted a presentation at the Vibe Hotel in Goulburn St, Sydney. The key speakers were Rebekah Horne and Andrew Cordwell. Rebekah had just stepped off a plane (from LA) so the proceedings were a tad unrehearsed....but that wasn't a huge problem for me. The real issue was a lack of compelling content. You be the judge.

As you weren't there here's the top line

1.
New UK research released by Myspace reveals social networks are now so integral to daily life, for some, they have surpassed TV as the entertainment media of choice. Nearly half of 18-24 year olds claim that if they had 15 mins to spare they would spend it on social networks rather than TV, reading, talking on the phone or playing games

2.
The UK report also identified 6 key personalities ranging from business to social users and beyond;
-Netrepreneurs - income earners
-Connecters - love to spread viral
- Transumers - grazers
- Collaborators - use it for people power, to create events, ideas and activities
- Scene Breakers - early adopters / trend setters
- Essentialist's - stay in touch with friends and family

There was no mention of the weight of each of these segments, just some indicators eg Essentials are the vast majority.

3.
What's Next?
- Explosion of MySpace as a video hub, MySpace TV is now second only to YouTube, in fact their Silverchair concert achieved over 2.1m streams in one month. This is in line with a strong Zone one TV programme so I believe does show potential.
- Continuation of the 'secret' series' (Music), Black Curtain (movies), Black Games (games). Great opportunities here for brands to facilitate unique experiences from online through to offline.
- More personalisation, apparently this will enable users to operate in different spheres. This was code talk as it's apparently top secret. My guess is perhaps different user interfaces for the same user depending who they are connecting with?
- Custom Communities - Check out V Raw, it just won campaign of the year at the AdNews awards. http://www.myspace.com/vraw
- This weekend will see a huge Mardis Gras online and offline event - MySpace will actually be broadcasting on screens at the event. Actually if you attend watch out for this I'd like to know more.
- Hypertagging. This is pretty cool it seems everyone's into it! MySpace is beta testing new technology using tagging.....ie every word on a users profile will be tagged to form 'buckets' for advertisers to exploit. Eg Got a new DVD release? Target user users with DVD in their profile...
- MySpace believe their user base is at a tipping point and will grow exponentially as consumers embrace the mobile web. Obviously they are investing heavily into this area. As expected so far it's much more about 'snacking' than the internet in terms of behaviour though.

So, that was about it....as for the tipping point, I'm not convinced.

I did store one tidbit for future use. On an introduction slide the title read 'Social Networking vs Social Destination'. I think this is a great way to express the difference between MySpace and Facebook. So my 2 hours wasn't a total waste, witness me weave that lingo into future presentations :)