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When I think of Blackberry users, I think of accountants, lawyers and anyone else who wears a tie and carries a briefcase. You know, really boring people. MySpace users, sorta the opposite.

But there must be some significant overlap, because 400,000 people downloaded the MySpace Blackberry application in the last week, says MySpace - it was launched on November 12.

Both RIM and MySpace say this is a record - no other application has been downloaded so quickly onto Blackberry devices, and MySpace has never had an application on any platform be downloaded as often.

MySpace also says that 15 million messages have been sent and received via the mobile app, and users have updated their mood and status more than 2 million times.

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Source: Michael Arrington

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MySpace has an embarrassing situation today involving their new MyAds self service advertising product - they’ve repeatedly rejected ads from a startup called HubPages as competitive to MySpace, despite the fact that the site isn’t a social network.

Ryan Hupfer from HubPages (who coincidentally is the author of MySpace For Dummies) writes:

This is a follow-up for these 2 posts (here and here) that you guys have written on the new MySpace MyAds advertising platform, which I was initially excited for and now wish that I’d never seen due to it being a complete waste of my time. I thought that you might enjoy hearing a first-person encounter with the system and from a business that actually utilizes these types of campaigns as a way for new member recruitment. I will give you a brief overview and if you’d like more information, I’d be more that happy to talk more about it.

Who I am:
My name is Ryan Hupfer and I’m the Communicator of Awesomeness! (marketing manager) at HubPages.com, a US top 250 website that focuses on helping writers monetize topical content. I believe that Mike knows one of our founders, Paul Edmondson pretty well and you wrote about our launch back in 2006. You last wrote something about in May of 2007 when we changed our look and added some text ad optimization to the site.

Why I’m contacting you:
Part of my job is to keep new writers coming into HubPages and we do all types of CPC campaigns and other online partnerships to help with this. Well, I have been using Facebook ads for quite a while now and have been very pleased with the results. It’s super easy to use, targets well and is very easy to create, update and manage as the campaigns progress over time. Well, when I heard that MySpace was coming up with the same type of self-service ad system I was pretty excited to try it out. I even had one of our designers come up with 2 versions of 5 ads that I wanted to start running. Well, as I started creating the campaigns, I first noticed a few things:

1. The targeting isn’t nearly as good as Facebook (I couln’t even target Finance or Autos topics)

2. The platform is very Flash heavy and super slow/clunky compared to Facebook

3. The campaign setup was fairly confusing and it seemed like I could only add one ad to a campaign, which dictates the ad budget (which had to be over $25). So that’s a daily spend of $25 per ad.

Despite these slowdowns, I still continued on and entered in each of the ads, with 2 versions of each (300 square and 728 banner). But, as I began to enter them in I noticed that they were starting to get rejected just as quickly as I was adding them in. I wasn’t really sure why they were getting rejected until I received an email from MySpace with a reason. This is where it gets interesting, too due to the fact that I received several different reasons for rejection for the same ad after I resubmitted it again. Also, 5 out of the 10 ads made it through, no probem so I have no idea why the some were rejected and some weren’t. Here are some screenshots of the rejection from the platform and here are a few quotes from the email that was sent to me (2 of them are different and they were for the same ad):

Rejection #1 (same ad as Rejection #2, but with different reason)
Dear Advertiser:

The Write 300 advertisement in your campaign(s) MySpace Writing 300 was reviewed to ensure that it complies with our editorial guidelines. We would like you to know that your ad was not accepted for the following reason: Other - Not accepting this type of business.

Rejection #2
Dear Advertiser:

The Write 300 advertisement in your campaign(s) MySpace Writing 300 was reviewed to ensure that it complies with our editorial guidelines. We would like you to know that your ad was not accepted for the following reason: Other - Promotion of a Myspace Competitor.

Rejection #3
Dear Advertiser:

The auto 700 advertisement in your campaign(s) auto 700 was reviewed to ensure that it complies with our editorial guidelines. We would like you to know that your ad was not accepted for the following reason: Other - Myspace competitor, cannot promote.

So, not only did they continue to reject my ads (and my money), but they did it in a very inconsistent way, not to mention that I would never view HubPages as a competitor to MySpace in the first place.

Anyways, I thought that you and the rest of the TechCrunch crew would find all of this pretty interesting and I would be curious to see if anyone else is having the same issues with the new MyAds platform. As an advertising platform it’s not even in the same ballpark as Facebook’s system, but maybe other people would say otherwise. If you’d like to post something about this, feel free and if you’d like more information, just let me know.

I contacted MySpace and they said the rejection is an error and will be reversed. They did confirm that they reject ads from “direct competitors,” and point out that Facebook does the same. In this case, though, they said that their customer service representatives were overzealous in rejecting the ads.

MySpace also says they now have 10,000 advertisers on the platform. Earlier this month we reported early revenue numbers for the product.

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In the platform wars between Facebook on the one side and MySpace, Google, and the whole OpenSocial crew on the other, the side that makes it easier for application developers to make the most money will win. Advertising in social networks has always been problematic, and with an advertising recession upon us those already-low ad rates are going to get lower, not higher. The other way to make money on these platforms is to try to charge for apps themselves or sell things through the apps. But to do that developers first need a payment and billing system to tap into.

Less than an hour ago, MySpace COO Amit Kapur revealed at the Web 2.0 Summit that MySpace is working on its own payments and virtual gift products that MySpace developers will be able to add to their own apps.

Facebook has its own virtual gifts, but has not yet opened that to developers. (Although there is a gift economy inside Facebook powered by other companies). And Facebook has been rumored to be working on a payments system since forever.

iPhone’s App Store has proven that, at least on mobile phones, people are willing to pay for apps. Bringing that model to social networks could work if the quality of the apps goes up and the number goes down. One problem with Facebook and MySpace apps is that there are too many of them. there are no barriers to entry. Charging for apps, or trying to sell add-on services through them, would force the startups and developers creating them to build something that people are actually willing to pay for.

And it is not just the developers who are in a sudden rush to figure out how they are going to make money. Facebook and MySpace are also under more pressure to ramp up revenues these days.

The challenge to switching over to such a model from the current free-for-all is that the value of many of these apps is directly correlated with how many people use them. (More specifically, with how many of your friends use them). The minute someone charges for an app, the adoption rate goes way down. So some aspect of most of these apps will likely always be free. But the ability to charge for extras or for a more fully-featured experience might actually result in better apps being produced.

In any case, the race is on to provide alternative revenue streams besides ads to app developers. Will MySpace beat Facebook to the payments party?

(Photo by Paul Falardeau).

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Source: Erick Schonfeld

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Slide founder Max Levchin just kicked off a panel called “The Platform Advantage” at the Web 2.0 Summit. Participants include Google’s Vic Gundotra, Microsoft’s David Treadwell, MySpace’s Amit Kapur and Facebook’s Elliot Schrage.

The panel began with a general debate on exactly what a platform is, and how each of the companies play in the space. Kapur says a platform has to create an ecosystem that includes a core base of users, tools to build applications, and an advertising network to monetize the platform. Kapur also let’s something slip - saying that MySpace will soon release a payments platform and a virtual goods platform.

Schrage says the Facebook platform is a place for users to interact, and for developers to take advantage of that social utility.

Treadwell, from Microsoft, is talking about open standards and advanced tools that let developers easily create applications. He highlights the iPhone platform as a great example.

Levchin says that everyone is talking about openness, but in reality every one of the platforms represented on stage are closed to some degree.

Gundotra says you have to disambiguate the term. Schrage focuses on the results - that developers can get far more traffic and engagement on Facebook than they can on their independent web applications.

Kapur says the most important thing is to build developer trust by having clear rules and guidelines - a clear slap at Facebook and their constantly evolving policies that tend to anger developers. Levchin (who runs one of the companies that has been in the middle of the Facebook politics) agrees, and notes that Microsoft’s Windows platform has done a good job over the years with consistency and backwards compatibility.

Schrage weighs in on Facebook’s behalf and distinguishes between technical and policy issues. He says on policy its important to be transparent and tell developers what’s coming. He says Facebook has sometimes failed to communicate changes to their platform and it’s something they’re still working on. He says over 400,000 developers have signed up to Facebook Platform, and they’ve had to scramble to scale. He also highlights the importance of community, and creating opportunities for developers to work with each other.

Gundotra (Google) says Facebook and MySpace aren’t true platforms but are extensible applications, similar to Office in the Windows world. He says the web is the important platform that we are all developing for. Open Social, Gundotra says, is an attempt to focus on the web as the platform.

Schrage says open standards are great, but they take too long to emerge. Experimentation with proprietary formats in the meantime is the right thing to do, he says.

Levchin brings up the next topic, asking how the platforms react to developers that start to make too much money by competing with them (again a slap at Facebook). Kapur says MySpace won’t break developer trust by competing with them.

Gundotra says it’s a recipe for disaster to have a single company control the platform. Innovation slows to a release every five years (referring to Windows). Using the open web allows fast innovation, and no one controls the platform.

Gundotra says “It’s Windows v. the web. And the web has won.”

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Source: Michael Arrington

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When Ashton Kutcher launched his animated show Blah Girls at TechCrunch50 earlier this year, he ran into MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe in the hallways. DeWolfe expressed interest in the show. Fast forward two months, and Blah Girls now has a distribution deal with MySpaceTV, which had 51 million unique video streams in August (Comscore).

The show features the adventures of three gossip queen teenagers - Tiffany, Britney and Krystle. They talk about pop culture issues of the day in episodes ranging from 45 seconds to two minutes. Season One is now up on MySpaceTV.

Kutcher talked about syndicating the show to a cable television network at TechCrunch50. We assume those negotiations are still up in the air.

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Former Amazon and Facebook executive Owen Van Natta is said to be a top contender for the CEO job of the new MySpace Music joint venture, multiple sources confirmed to us this morning. There are also a number of other candidates still being interviewed. Last month we posted a shortlist with a handful of them.

MySpace Music, an ambitious joint venture between MySpace and top music labels, is set to launch sometime this month. The project combines the music from three of the four major labels (Sony BMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group) with a rumored $120 million in cash from MySpace and its existing music properties.

Music download sales are just one revenue stream for the new venture. In addition to selling DRM-free music (singles, albums, and playlists), MySpace Music will iteratively also offer ring tones, concert tickets, merchandise (tshirts, etc.) and branded advertising campaigns. Amazon is said to be powering the music download part of the service.

Van Natta left Facebook earlier this year and has been said to be looking for a CEO spot at a new company. MySpace Music may be just the position he’s looking for.

Don’t count on a CEO announcement before launch, though. In an interview with MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe earlier this week at TechCrunch50, he made it clear that they’re willing to wait as long as it takes to find the right person for the job, and the search for a CEO certainly won’t delay the launch. In any case, DeWolfe and MySpace COO Amit Kapur themselves remain actively involved in the venture and plan to maintain leadership roles within it even after launch.

Skip to the 7:24 mark in the video below if you want to hear just about MySpace Music:

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Facebook may be the king of the Silicon Valley crowd, but Paris Hilton apparently prefers MySpace. 42 year old MySpace cofounder and CEO Chris DeWolfe has been dating 27 year old Paris Hilton for at least a few weeks, sources close to the company confirm. We first got wind of this when we saw DeWolfe in a random video clip with Hilton from last month (see below). He’s also been throwing parties in the Hamptons, and Hilton has been at all of them.

Now we’ve got a source in New York that’s confirming the two are dating. DeWolfe is hosting yet another party tonight in the Hamptons, and Hilton will reportedly be there as his date.

This is a brilliant marketing move for MySpace (or for Hilton?). Or maybe they actually like each other. All we’ve confirmed is that they are definitely dating.

As far as we can tell DeWolfe still has a wife (but is reportedly separated) and Hilton still has an official boyfriend, but whatever, this is Hollywood. Best of luck to both of them.

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According to data released today by comScore, both Facebook and MySpace still trail Japan’s leading social network Mixi.jp by a wide margin, despite recent pushes by both networks to expand in the country. While Facebook’s Japan site has grown three fold in the last year, it still has only about 4% of the users that Mixi does (538,000 versus 12.7 million unique visitors in June).

The data confirm TechCrunch contributor Serkan Toto’s post last week that described why the two networks are largely failing in Japan. Toto explains that much of the problem stems from Facebook and MySpace’s late entry into Japan - it took both of them years to release localized versions, giving Mixi time to establish a stranglehold on the market.

According to Toto, another contributing factor has been a lack of changes made by MySpace and Facebook in response to Japan’s cultural differences (although both Facebook and MySpace argued that we missed key emerging partnerships and products they are developing). In Japan, many users are more concerned with security, privacy, and to some extent, anonymity - things that Mixi has placed more emphasis on than Facebook or MySpace.

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