A Chat with News Corp's Peter Chernin

Kara Swisher interviews News Corp. COO Peter Chernin on the D stage this morning.

Peter talks about MySpace in response to Kara's curiosity about its continued success and where he sees it going. Says Peter, "MySpace traffic has become a momentum powerhouse. Two things people said when we bought MySpace was: get ready for the Foxification of MySpace and secondly, that its a passing fad. We had to learn that MySpace is a different paradigm, a different fabric. MySpace is a place for users to express themselves." A great example is the Photobucket acquisition, which now claims more than 40 million users.

He doesn't believe that they should force people to use something if another service does a better job. "Our view is straight forward," he continues. "We have tried to create an open, reasonably chaotic environment, where anything goes on MySpace. Our job is to sell advertising."

They also have a set of tools where people can manipulate video. Re: tools like this as add-ons for users, Kara asks whether we'll see a lot of acquisitions like this in the future. "We try to innovate," says Peter, "sure, if it makes sense." On some level, people might say that they have one of the largest advertising platforms. Says Peter, "our job is to monetize that traffic, and optimum the way to monetize search. In some ways, the question becomes, 'how do we serve up advertising in the most effective way?"

He also talked about their recent acquisition of ad serving targeting technology and the importance of this as a tool moving forward. With MySpace, people tell them personal information about themselves when they register, i.e., their sex, age, etc. People also customize their pages, so they have an enormous amount of information on these users early on.

Peter says, "the great opportunity for us is to really target ads that they really care about based on the data users provide. We're not unique about targeting, where we're unique is giving them targeted ads based on information they have proactively given us." Client LeapTag has a similar approach, but its a download that sits in your browser. Because it remains on your desktop, all that information is kept private.

What about privacy and safety issues for children? He feels that people will never be completely restricted by things online, so parents need to get involved. He thinks that age verification software makes things worse. You're only as good as the information that has been given by someone. He emphasized the importance of parents' with young children supervising their use of the Internet.

One final word? The most important Internet company in the market right now? Peter doesn't hesitate. "Google."