News Corp. betting online efforts will lead growth

As much as 10% of Fox Interactive Media's income could be generated by social networking and other online initiatives according to News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch. Fox Interactive holdings include MySpace and gaming information network IGN.

by Kristina Knight

Murdoch spoke at McGraw Hill's Media Summit Conference Thursday. According to Murdoch, MySpace has shown 30% growth for several quarters and now accounts for about $25 million in monthly revenue.

With such incredible growth, every brand should have their own social networking site, right? Perhaps they should, but apparently those businesses don't. According to reports, big businesses have been a little slow to jump on the social networking bandwagon and it may be too late to secure their ride. Many "brand" names have been picked up already and so far MySpace is not removing domains that include those brand names.

One thing Murdoch isn't certain about is online video, which many say will show sky-rocketing growth over the next couple of years. "If you interrupt that flow of video with commercials, they'll be up and off somewhere else very quickly," he said (via MediaPost).

Gaming investment IGN has also shown growth for News Corp. During Q4, 2006, the site doubled traffic and page views. Some of that traffic was likely due to the releases of the Sony PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii system.

News Corp. revenue was down a bit for the end of their fiscal Q2 this year. The company reported $822 million in revenue, down from $1.08 billion the prior year. Murdoch isn't too worried, however. He estimates revenue from News Corp.'s digital investments alone will reach $1 billion by June 2008.