Engage or die

With a membership of 200 million, the population of MySpace is greater than all but a handful of countries. Its peers, Facebook, Bebo and LinkedIn, are expanding rapidly, confirming the huge global appeal of social and professional networks.

Chatting to friends and customising profiles aren’t the only ways in which users are seizing control of the web’s growth hotspots. Whether sharing videos on YouTube, contributing articles to Wikipedia or writing reviews, ratings and blogs, the rise of user-generated content is unmissable.

In a world where content is king and attention is scarce, no media company – and no advertiser – can afford to ignore the millions who are avidly consuming text, pictures and films created not by media professionals but by ‘people like me’.



Over the last three years, the phenomenon has sparked a series of high-profile acquisitions, both by pure internet players and by traditional media. Blockbuster deals have seen News Corp buy MySpace for $650m, CBS purchase Last.fm for $280m, ITV acquire Friends Reunited for $240m, Google snap up YouTube for a mouth-watering $1.65bn and Microsoft purchase a stake in Facebook – which still has less than half the active members of MySpace – valuing the company at a staggering $15bn.

As a longstanding global investor in media and internet businesses, 3i has a wide network of contacts and a deep understanding of the market. Our 2002 investment helped start-up photoblogging site Fotolog grow into one of the top 20 places on the web, with over 11 million accounts.

We’ve been talking to some of the leading thinkers in pure-play internet companies and long-established media giants. As well as sharing their views on the impact of current trends on audiences and economics, they look over the horizon to identify the next wave of growth. Print this page