He’ll make the world pay

At the age of 68, there’s no more need to introduce the media magnate, Head of News Corp, the world’s 132nd richest man, Rupert Murdoch.  
After newspapers and television, Rupert Murdoch chose to diversity his activity with Internet, by acquiring, in 2005, the community web site MySpace, at the time number 1 in its sector, for 580 million dollars (that is to say 406 million euros). Heightened business acumen or an error of judgment? Four years later, MySpace has lost ground considerably to Facebook and its value has heavily depreciated, and it is difficult to answer the question…
What remains to be said is that at the start of August this year, Rupert Murdoch announced that he wished to put an end to free access to the press on Internet and instead charge fees for access to all his news web sites (Wall Street Journal, The Sun, The Times) by the middle of the 2010 tax year.
A turnabout for a man who has long defended a model based exclusively
on advertising? What now for the future of social networks and MySpace? The man now appears determined not to lose money… And he may well be the one to inspire broader change in this sector.