Social Media and Marketing

MySpace is teaming up with Citysearch to let users of the social-networking service share reviews of local restaurants and bars.

Published: 01 Apr 2009

MySpace is teaming up with Citysearch to let users of the social-networking service share reviews of local restaurants and bars.

The new site, called MySpace Local, merges Citysearch’s database of local business listings with the online hangout’s vast community of users. That will let MySpace users rate their neighbourhood eateries and nightlife and share what they think with their friends.

“We like to call it a social directory,” said MySpace vice president of product management Chris Blandy. “We are taking the rich, deep content Citysearch has built up over the years, ingesting all that content into our pages and adding all the social-networking capabilities.”

“The friend updates and the recommendation alert on the home page are the primary ways we expect users to engage,” Blandy said. “That is the key to this social-discovery concept.”

MySpace expects to make money from online ads and sponsored links, and has negotiated a revenue-sharing deal with Citysearch.

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