News Corp's boss finally appeared at the D (All Things Digital) conference, possibly because he now owns it. He also owns its parent company, Dow Jones, which owns The Wall Street Journal and wsj.com. The D6 Highlights section has a summary of the chat, plus a 6-minute video. There's also a better summary at Barron's, which Murdoch also owns.
A big chunk of the talk is of particular interest to Wall Street Journal journalists, but Murdoch did opine on the Microsoft-Yahoo deal. Barron's says:
On the Microsoft/Yahoo situation: I'm mystified. I can't understand the whole thing. Jerry Yang is a friend, but unfortunately, he only owns 5%. Someone offers a price which the vast majority of holders said give me quick. He managed to hold them off. He said it would take another few bucks -- basically another $8 billion. Microsoft decided to back off. That also mystifies you? "Absolutely." . What happens there now? I think they are going to find some other way. There is a deal ready for them to sign with Google. There is a real regulatory risk for everyone in this. It would be sad if they did a deal with Google and it got held up for 12 months, while Google continued to eat their lunch. Google is gushing money. You can see exactly why Microsoft is worried. Ballmer is not without ambition, they have huge amounts of money, but they see the danger of it turning on them.
Murdoch also talks about My Space, which he owns:
On Facebook vs. MySpace: I think that it is no longer true over last 6-12 months that you hear more about Facebook. By any measurement, we are 2-3x as big. There were 22 million uniques when we bought it, and now there are 120 million. We have twice as many uniques in this country by any public measurement. And users stay an hour a day longer. We're about personal expression, people reaching out, looking for other people, a true social network. In Iraq, all of those people were on MySpace, trying to find people to talk to in this country. Murdoch says 45% of MySpace users are over 35. 45% of all the mothers in America are on MySpace.
Other topics include Hulu and Obama.....
