Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg may have kicked off the Web 2.0 Summit by saying nothing, but today was all about MySpace — both in and out of San Francisco.
Chris DeWolfe and Rupert Murdoch were on stage talking about opening up the MySpace platform right around the time I was hearing about movie download service VUDU hiring former Fox Interactive (NWS) COO Mark Jung as its new CEO. MySpace opened an office in San Francisco with a big bash.
The party’s highlight for me personally: kicking it with the Ole Fox, Rupert Murdoch, who had just come back from New Delhi and was talking about how the market was booming there. Thank god he didn’t bring up the Aussies shellacking the Indian cricket team. Of course he was like a bride’s dad at a wedding party so I had to move on, only to have a few giggles with Sean Gold.
Nevertheless on my way to the SFMOMA, where the MySpace party was held, I ran into former MySpace/FOX Interactive President Ross Levinsohn, who was chilling at the St. Regis with Keyur Patel, formerly of Inktomi and Maxtor, and now a general partner with ComVentures. Levinsohn and ex-AOLer Jon Miller have started a new investment company, Velocity, that is going to gobble up Internet properties and build a massive media company.
There have been reports that Velocity and ComVentures could team up for future investments. So far, Velocity Investment Management has the backing of a NY hedge fund, General Atlantic. I asked Patel and Levinsohn if there was something cooking? After all, Levinsohn sits on the board of Fabrik and Fuse+Media, two companies Patel is pretty closely involved [and invested] in.
Velocity has been linked with Broadband Enterprises in the recent past. Levinsohn was reticent about saying anything, but something tells me these two were cooking up something. When I pressed them for more details, and asked if a closer relationship between ComVentures and Velocity was in the works, Levinsohn smiled and decided to take a walk. That action pretty much says it all.
Anyway I will have more stories from Web 2.0 Summit tomorrow. Till then!
Just out of intrest, did Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg talk about revenue model for MySpace and Facebook respectively?
Some that know him will claim that Mark Jung is lucky, not great. We’ll see.
FMRR not likely that there was any conversation. but who knows how the tycoons work 🙂
Stone,
interesting observation. Well, as they say better to be lucky than…