Holy Update Blogman! MySpace offers 24…
It seems that as soon as we’d posted the message, and then BAM!! A whole wackload of examples presented themselves. MySpace has started to sellÂ? episodes of ‘24′ and Skype is doing a couple different things, offeringÂ? SkypeOut free in the U.S. and Canada, and soon will allow PayPal payments via Skype. These are basic examples of these websites building on their core features in a way that provides added benefit to their users.
We posted about the value of digital content and suggested that this is a logical step for News Inc. to make to more quickly get back the huge investment it made in the website. Online advertising alone was never going to be the way forÂ? that website to reach its full potential. And with the recent release of AIM Pages, the pressure to move forward with such an effort increased dramatically. Many of the MySpace users will be tempted to at least try out the new service, and this kind of announcement will likely create media attention that helps detract from AIM Pages. MySpace offering episodes of ‘24′ for download is the evolution for these major Entertainment corporations, and the shift has begun. Where will Sony fit into this, with what is described as the most valuable collection of colour movies in the world.
Skype’s new services are interesting because they not only build on the company itself, they help bridge the gap between the two separate websites, Skype and PayPal, which is important. Skype users will be more inclined to utilize PayPal, and PayPal users are provided with an added reason to choose Skype over other services. I mentioned that the VoIP marketplace is filling up rather quickly, so the move to offer some level of free service for US customers is important. Om points out that this is clearly a way to make a bigger splash in the North American market. Although it is difficult to directly make money of this, with some careful marketing (”Free calls anywhere in Canada or the US” have aÂ? familiar ring to it?), an increase in the number of users will hopefully make for a healthy fall harvest for eBay.