Rupert Murdoch is not sorry his News Corp bought Intermix, the owner of MySpace, a year ago. Forget for a moment the phenomenal growth in the user base. According to Wendy Davis’ article on Online Media Daily, referencing eMarketer data,

MySpace “last month garnered 17 percent of online display impressions � up more than two points from May’s 14.6 percent, according to new data by Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance.”

That’s half Yahoo! Mail, but double MSN Hotmail.

In a more recent article, again using eMarketer data, she reported that MySpace is set to pull in $180 million in revenue this year, on it’s way to getting a piece of the $1.86 billion pie predicted to exist by 2010.

Ad dollars represent a cost to affiliate marketers, not revenue, it’s true. But those dollars are being spent there for good reason: to generate buzz. Buzz gets you noticed. Buzz gets you visitors. Visitors bring money. And that, my friends, is the name of the game.

Is it a fad? Is it just another among a number of bubbles that grew and popped? No one can say for sure. But somehow, teens and others gathering together to express themselves, share experiences and photos, arrange dates, recommend movies, etc… somehow, that doesn’t sound like something that is going away anytime soon.

And MySpace is clearly experiencing the kind of positive spiral that led Amazon not too many years ago to become what it is today.

Yeah, I would think Rupert Murdoch is not unhappy about that particular investment. And, neither should affiliate marketers be.