But, as journalists and analysts point out, this is speculative and forward-looking. News Corporation has chosen not to look at the historical information. Back in February, the Financial Times was reporting how Myspace had put a $275m hole in News Corps's profits. Before that (January) the story was about massive layoffs at Myspace, which had lost 10 million users in just a month (according to the Daily Telegraph).
If News Corporation is to be believed, though, revenues will start rising, despite this apparent hemorrhaging of customers. Maybe the optimism is fueled by another report, that online advertising revenue is increasing again after a slight hiatus during the recession?
The most likely reason for the upbeat tone at News Corporation is that it is widely known that Myspace is up for sale, and needs to have its prospects talked up. Online music site Vevo has been talked about as a prospective buyer. But News Corp has few options: having paid $580m for Myspace in 2005 the company can sell at a massive loss (which is what happened with AOL's disastrous purchase of Bebo) or it can just close Myspace down.
This gloomy scenario is very much at odds with what is happening elsewhere in the social media scene, with huge (and unrealistic) valuations being put on Facebook and Twitter (neither of which are for sale), and growing excitement about possible flotations of other platforms.
The core demographic for brand owners - young, educated, affluent, global, connected - has migrated from Myspace to Facebook. This company not only can demonstrate exponential growth in user numbers, but it seems to have plans which involve continuing growth in users and better monetization of the existing customer base.
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