The Wall Street Journal (paid sub. req.) reports that News Corp. is investing (via acquistion) up to $150 million in online targeting technology.
Strategic Data makes technology that helps Web sites place and target ads aimed at specific audiences. News Corp. hopes the technology will help MySpace solve one of its biggest challenges: raising the price of many of the ads that run on MySpace’s more than 150 million user-created “profile” pages. Those ads currently sell for pennies per thousand viewers — well below the price fetched by some other Web sites — because big-name advertisers often confine themselves to building their own profile pages or advertising on MySpace’s front pages.
While MySpace topped Yahoo in terms of page views in December, making it the most viewed site in the U.S., according to comScore Media Metrix Inc., MySpace trails far behind Yahoo Inc. in revenue. For the three months ended Dec. 31, MySpace revenue tripled to $75 million from the same period a year earlier. Yahoo, by comparison, had revenue of $1.7 billion during the same time period.
