The Hollywood Reporter has a lengthy and very interesting interview with Rupert Murdoch. Here he is on the whole Internet thing:
THR: Looking toward the future — which you are always doing — do you see opportunities, or are you building only because that is what corporations do?
Murdoch: Oh, huge opportunities. The Internet is certainly … you know, it’s … I was operating — we’ve all been operating — during a changing model of communications: television, moving pictures and so on. But the Internet has been the most fundamental change during my lifetime and for hundreds of years. Someone the other day said, “It’s the biggest thing since Gutenberg,” and then someone else said, “No, it’s the biggest thing since the invention of writing.” With the technology that goes with it, the fact is that everybody now is empowered: Anyone can buy what they want, shop where they want, talk to anybody in the world that they want (and) state their own opinions. There’s no mystery to a blog: Put up your thoughts (and) find friends. And the younger people are, the more time they’re spending on it — it’s extraordinary. We bought (MySpace.com) a few weeks ago and just closed the deal last night, legally. There are 32 million people already registered on that, and there are 125,000 a day being added to it. They’re finding common interests: When they’re 17 or 18, they go on looking for dates; if they’re 25, there are 3 (million) or 4 million young mothers out there talking about things. Within that, there are lots and lots of communities, and they can all blog — they can all write in a personal diary every week, or whatever they want.
THR: How did it come to your attention to buy that?
Murdoch: I think it was Ross Levinsohn, who runs Fox Interactive Media, who first brought it to my attention. We looked at it, and we got so excited so quickly about it because we had decided eight months ago that we’ve just got to have a bigger presence in that area (the Internet), and we need to figure out how to do it. We had been doing defensive things: the Times of London online, the New York Post online — the Times is getting millions of viewers online. Also, you’re getting traditional companies — whether it be the Gap or Wal-Mart or whomever — selling a lot of goods through Web sites, so I think you’re going to find that (the Internet is) going to be a meaningful source of transactions — more than anecdotal.
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Rupert, 1995 is calling and wants it’s thoughts back.