Google Helps Push MySpace To First Profit

News Corp announced that MySpace, its social networking site that is one of the most popular websites in the world, turns its first ever profit last year. MySpace had a profit of $10 million on revenue of $550 million, an admittedly small margin, but profitable earlier than most expected and on the way to becoming a successful business in its own right.
Bearing some responsibility for the success of MySpace is Google. Google made an advertising deal with MySpace a year ago last week, guaranteeing Fox Interactive websites $900 million over four years, meaning that if Google only barely made the guarantee, it still brought in just under half of MySpace’s revenue. I wonder how Google classifies these ads under its own earnings report, and, with the numbers so high, if shareholders should be given the numbers on how well these exclusive ad deals are working out.
(via TechDirt)

Original post by Nathan Weinberg