Paying up for MySpace
You have to wonder what Microsoft's (msn), Yahoo (yhoo) and InterActiveCorp's (iaci) Ask.com were thinking by letting MySpace go to Google. MSN has enough money and it's trying to validate its own search advertising platform. Yet it wouldn't pay up for MySpace traffic, which tend to go to Google to search.
MySpace had 45 million unique visitors
in June, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. 
And, about 10% of MySpace traffic
leaves MySpace to go to Google, according to HitWise. Clearly, there
was an opportunity for the other search engines to capture that search
traffic. They let it slip away. Too bad for MSN, Yahoo and Ask.com. Also, Bill Tancer noted a while back that when MySpace had an outage, a lot of its users went to Google. Read Tancer's take.
Btw, if you were reading my MarketWatch blog today, you would have known the MySpace/Google deal was coming. It was posted before the close of the trading day.
Also, watch for my Net Sense column, in which I'll comment about the Google/MySpace and Google/MTV deal. Also, go to MarketWatch Tuesday for my video interview with FIM's Ross Levinsohn.
Watch out for my commentary tomorrow.
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