A Second Coming Of The Dot-Coms

Entertainment sites are also building an edge using free labor. Sites like MySpace rely heavily on messages, stories, music mixes and photos made by users, and often this self-generated entertainment is better than what the Web editors come up with. Gambling sites like PartyPoker.com and Betfair.com, as well as photo-sharing sites like Flickr.com, take advantage of users who are, in essence, entertaining themselves. While News Corp.'s recent deals may look like a mishmash, Ross Levinsohn, president of the company's interactive division, says that each site had "a strong community of very passionate users" that the company was eager to tap.

Not all self-postings will be worth something. The real value will likely be in more nuanced tools to sift through it all. Levinsohn has been chatting with numerous specialty search companies, though he denies the rumors that News Corp. plans to acquire the London- and San Francisco-based video-search company Blinkx. Late last week, News Corp. was just beginning its second ever companywide Internet strategy conference on how best to exploit the recent acquisitions, and what to buy now. The second coming of the dot-coms has clearly begun. And it looks to have more staying power than the first.

© 2005