By Phonshia Nie Online chatting, blogging and networking have become a common addiction among college students worldwide. However, these websites haven’t only affected the computer savvy youth, but have also created the billion dollar industry of online networking. Mostly created by young college students or young computer employees with the help of venture capitalists, these websites have resulted in huge profits from advertising and heavy traffic. Recently, many of these websites have become acquired, or at least pursued, by media giants trying to profit from the seemingly never-ending obsession with online profiles and blogs. Here are just a few popular networking sites making headlines in newspapers and business magazines. Wretch
Founded in 1999 by a National Chiao Tung University student, Wretch has become the most popular blogging, photo album and networking site in Taiwan. It is the second most visited site in Taiwan, behind Yahoo. However, Marketing Week reported Yahoo! Taiwan marketing directors citing Wretch, not Google or other search sites, as the reason for Yahoo’s 10 percent traffic decrease in Taiwan. More recently, The Guardian reported that Yahoo is rumored to be interested in buying Wretch. Taipei Times estimates the figure to be about NT$700 million (US $21 million). Wretch has about 2.8 million members and has been estimated to be the 27th most visited website in the world. MySpace Business Week reported it as the sixth most popular website in the world with traffic on the website doubling in this past year. Purchased by the media empire News Corp. about a year ago for $580 million, MySpace continues to attract people online with its blogging features and personalized profiles. It also allows for music and video streaming postings. Though hugely popular in the United States, MySpace has found limited success in Asian countries due to local websites like Cyworld in South Korea, Mixi in Japan and Wretch in Taiwan. This college networking site was created in February 2004 by a Harvard undergraduate student and has grown to become a business with a price tag of over $1 billion. Yahoo, Viacom and Microsoft all have met with the company to negotiate terms and prices, though the Wall Street Journal reported Yahoo as being the most likely purchaser. Previously only available to those with a college or university email address, it is soon expanding its membership to non-college students, promising the upgrade of its already numerous privacy controls. This is estimated to expand the website from about 10 million users to up to or over 100 million members. YouTube Perhaps one of the most popular video streaming and video-sharing websites, YouTube has always been in the news for being possibly acquired some time soon. Last week it finally happened, with Google purchasing the site for a whopping $1.65 billion. Possible problems for the company may occur, however, as copyright issues are coming back into play. Like the demise of the old Napster, music and movie companies like Sony and Universal have called YouTube a major copyright infringer. Though under no threat of shutdown, YouTube will most likely have to begin to function under more media provisions, possibly limiting user’s accessibility and usage. Currently, YouTube has about 20 million users a month and streams 100 million videos a day. a
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May 2024
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