Will the metaverse see as many casualties as the internet, indeed social media?
One of the most spectacular occurred when Rupert Murdoch, justly lauded for his commercial nous, bought social media site Myspace. He paid $580m in 2005, signed a $900m ad deal with Google a year later. In 2011 he sold it for $35m.
The Murdoch empire gave Myspace both barrels while it had it, including its first big TV campaign featuring – surprise, surprise – unreasonably ecstatic bright young things partying, a pretty constant feature of social media and tech ads ever since.
So why didn’t Myspace work, given that its playbook still seems to be in common use?
Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook at Harvard a year earlier, that’s what.
PS The ad’s absolutely awful – but so are most that rely on a hackneyed idea (or lack of it.)
Many years ago I had the misfortune to work on the SUN account. This meant many meetings with the “Wizened of Oz.” Very unpleasant. What a wanker! Talking about failures. Don’t forget “Second Life.” the forerunner to the “Metaverse.” Hopefully ZuckerNozzle’s venture will go the same way as Trump’s “Truth Social. Cheers/George