Profit ruins everything... Unless you have authentic brand!

So here we are again. Another tech company that experienced one-time great success taken over by the immediacy of monetization. Of course with the crippled traditional media market, business people are salivating over anything that reaches the masses and has the capability of filling the advertising void, so I understand why MySpace (and many others) are eager to make their business plans work.

For the sake of full disclosure, I am not a MySpace fan, but value the importance of having several varieties of social networks to hit across all demographic segments. Anyone who thinks one social network can be it all to every audience is a bit naive. Facebook should not be Twitter, and MySpace should not be Facebook. How each network allows you to be social, will attract certain types of people. And that's OK. We all know competition is good.

But back to my point... I am very curious to see how the very networks, which are all about providing an authentic vehicle for people to be themselves, may quickly take a very unauthentic path. What does all this mean? MySpace needs to figure out what it is (beyond just being another social network) before it can reach sustainable success. It won't matter who they put in place or how smart they are. If MySpace doesn't know who it is as a brand, and what its authentic brand purpose is, it will inevitably fail. I can only hope they know this, but are not sharing, and are using their insider understanding to recruit executive talent that align with their purpose. If not, they are especially doomed if the only agreed upon understanding of purpose is to drive profit, and fast.

Good luck MySpace. I need you to make a successful go at this change - there are advertisers looking to target your audience. You just need to clarify who your audience is and what your relationship needs to be with them.