News Corp. digital chief Jonathan Miller talks MySpace with Fortune's Jessi Hempel.
(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET)PASADENA, Calif.--News Corp. digital chief Jonathan Miller said Thursday that MySpace needs a culture shift that focuses on spotting changes in consumer behavior and adapting more quickly.
"One of the things about this medium is you have to continually develop product," Miller said, speaking at the Brainstorm: Tech conference here. "You can't just put something on the shelf."
For MySpace, that means focusing on doing a few things well. Asked about Rupert Murdoch's recent comments that MySpace should focus on entertainment, Miller said: "When you get involved in companies that need to regain their way, the key thing you have to find out is who are you really."
Entertainment is a big piece of who MySpace is, Miller said. "MySpace has, since its inception, has had meaningful impact in how culture and pop culture (specifically) has been defined."
Although MySpace has fallen behind, he said that the key is becoming quicker at spotting the trends just now emerging, rather than catching up in all the areas it has missed.
"You can't play catch-up or at least you can't do it very much," he said. To spot new trends, he said that the company needs small groups specialized on specific tasks, as opposed to a large, matrix-based organization.
On the publishing side of the business, Miller said News Corp. and indeed lots of the leaders in print and book publishing will start getting much more aggressive this fall.
"The business models have to be creative," Miller said. "You have to leverage the assets you have while they are still vibrant."
Updated 6:15 AM PST November 30
According to one report, Yahoo and Microsoft may once again be working on a search deal.
The Times of London reported this weekend that Microsoft is in talks to acquire Yahoo's search business for $20 billion. According to the paper, former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller and fomer Fox Interactive President Ross Levinsohn are set to head the effort.
"Senior directors at Microsoft and Yahoo are understood to have agreed the broad terms of a deal, but there is no guarantee that it will succeed," The Times said in its report.
Microsoft declined to comment on the report. It is worth noting that as of Friday, the market capitalization of Yahoo in its entirety was just shy of $16 billion. Microsoft was once willing to pay far more to get Yahoo, but a lot has changed since the early part of the year.
Since Microsoft made its last offer for Yahoo, Yahoo and Google have announced and abandoned a search deal, Yahoo's shares have plummeted to single digits, and the company has said it would replace Jerry Yang as CEO.
In the days following the Yang announcement, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer indicated that the company was decidedly not interested in a full acquisition of Yahoo but said that some sort of search partnership remained "an interesting possibility." CNET had earlier reported Microsoft's continuing interest in such a deal.
Update:Kara Swisher of D: All Things Digital talked to Ross Levinsohn, who the Times of London said would be involved in the $20 billion deal. He told her the report was "total fiction," and sources from Yahoo and Microsoft denied such a deal was in the works. Of course, this series of denials doesn't mean that a search deal between Yahoo and Microsoft isn't a real possibility in the near future.
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