Rafat Ali was obviously rubbed the wrong way by Emily Bell's conclusions about the MySpace acquisition by Murdoch & Co:

Emily Bell, the editor-in-chief of Guardian Online, writes a piece on Rupert' Murdoch's "renewed interest" in online, and how MySpace acquisition is something which may not work out for the company. Which, in itself, is a fair opinion and argument to be made. But then, this: "In a company which has reinvented everything from the tabloid newspaper to the television establishment, heading to the shops for online expertise makes News Corp and Murdoch seem less like visionaries and more like spectators." Here she makes the classic journalistic mistake: laziness. And not seeing it in the bigger context. What's so hard to understand in an acquisition? It is what it is...in the evolution of an industry, that's what bigger player always do: they buy. That's what Murdoch is doing here. Take it from me: everybody and their mother in law wanted to buy MySpace. If you would have used it, and spent some time combing through the dynamic working there, you would have been amazed. The buyout price reflects that glamor element, not the best thing, but understandable. Just because AOL-TW merger went in a mess doesn't mean everything else will. And just because there are 20 stories talking about the death of media conglomerate, doesn't mean the conglomeration will end.

I think Rafat goes over the top to suggest the the "classic journalistic mistake" is laziness, or that laziness motivates her perspective on this development. (I have always maintained that the class journalistic mistake is the myth of objectivity, but that's another story.)

The price involved makes this seem AOL/Time-Warner scale bubblicious, and Bell's initial comment about " the impossibility of assessing the value of new media acquisitions to old media companies" demonstrate her willingness to believe in the wild and wonderful Web 2.0 future that the MySpace buy must be part of.

But at the core of her argument, Bell seems to be suggesting that Murdoch just can't get there from here:

All of the truly successful web businesses which Murdoch seeks to emulate - at least in terms of revenues and reach - Google, Yahoo!, Amazon, MSN - do not have pioneering vision bolted on to them but embedded in the heart of their corporate culture. The mess of AOL and Time Warner has proved one thing - that integrating online and offline can take a decade, millions of dollars, and still leave you with two distinct businesses that have barely budged an inch.

[...]

One would have to question whether it is really so late in the game that half a billion dollars is better spent on a purchase rather than given to the sharp minds at Fox or even Sky (the most technologically advanced of all Murdoch's mainstream businesses), to see if they can hit the golden jackpot of successfully spinning a strong offline media culture into a vibrant online manifestation.

While the AOL/Time-Warner mishugas is a cautionary tale for any media move into online, the analogy fails: AOL purchased TimeWarner, not the other way around. And AOL was no hotbed of innovation, stifled by the broadcast media types: it was offtrack, denying the Internet, and playing a bad game of catch-up since the first release of Mosiac.

I agree with Rafat's perception that many, many media companies would have loved to buy MySpace. More importantly, this is just the start of the socialization of all media experience, and ultimately, all ecommerce. That is what is being lost in this discussion.

As television and other broadcast becomes absorbed by the Internet, we will not see a movement from 500 channels to five million channels, but an implosion into infinite channels. The only means of making that work are the elements of social architecture as manifested by solutions like MySpace. The role of major media outlets will shift from producing and channeling the 'content' into providing a social context for individuals to mix and mingle in a 'content' rich environment. (Note that I am using scare quotes around 'content' because it is one of the terms that will be most significantly changed by this revolution.)

While it may be true that Murdoch & Co don't have the vision to see this all coming, and maybe the visionary DNA at MySpace won't take control at News Corp fast enough to ensure the successful transition of News Corp into a viable competitor of Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft, you have to admit that they need to do something. The era of the traditional media conglomerate is coming to a close, and if News Corp doesn't do something fast, it will hit the bottom of the elevator shaft and bounce.

And handing 500 million to the folks who are programming reality TV shows and Homer Simpson reruns at Fox, or to the folks doing whatever they do at Sky, is really just arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

No: win or lose, this is a good bet. Let's see if Murdoch & Co are willing to see the hand through to the end. This is not the last bet, and you can be sure that the others at the table -- Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, for example -- are going to continue to raise the stakes.

[pointer from Dana Blankenthorn]