Rupert Murdoch biographer Michael Wolff draws some damning conclusions from recent reports of “turmoil” at News Corporation-owned social networking site MySpace:
I tried once to make him [Murdoch] feel better about MySpace. It was a hapless effort: Every traditional media company that’s bought a significant internet company has failed, I said, brightly. I received a memorable scowl.
He may still retreat and practice his old black magic of making his errors disappear. But something’s got him. Something about this bloody internet has really gotten under his skin.
More and more, it feels like a death match.
Former media editor for the Times, Dan Sabbagh, disagrees with Wolff’s conclusion, but has some interesting figures on the Times’ finances that are worth a look…