MySpace and What Corporations Really Want

 This is an old story, but a revealing one. I missed it at the time, but it's worth revisiting.

Back in 2016, Time Inc acquired Viant, an ad tech company--and that was mostly exciting because back in 2011, Viant had purchased MySpace. 

If you are of a Certain Age, you remember MySpace as a visually alarming website created for fledgling bands to share their stuff, but which morphed into a -proto-Facebook social media space. It triggered all sorts of relationship drama, as users could select friends to put in their top eight spaces. Facebook soon obliterated it, but it has never really died and has changed hands a few times. These days, it's a music and culture site. 

But in 2016, Time's CEO got some chuckles by admitting that he had never even looked at the website before he bought it. But here's the quote that really matters:

The whole point of MySpace is it gave you permission to reach 1.2 billion people. You combine that with the permissions Time Inc. has from its audiences: We reach 250 million adults in the US. We basically reach 80% of the adults anyone is trying to reach with the permissions that we have to reach them and track them and follow them, so MySpace has really been all about permissions.

Permissions and data--that's the commodity being bought and sold.

And that's why corporate interest in accessing the K-12 market remains high-- schools represent a highly desirable demographic that is hard to get to. Data about them, and permission to push messages out to them--those are highly desirable commodities, and school systems remain really dumb about managing access to them. When you think about it, it's kind of amazing that schools pay companies for the chance to let them come in and collect the stuff; it's like an oil company charging you money so that they can drill and pipe oil out of your property. And that's before we get to the need to protect the privacy of minors.

While some edu-tech companies may well get into the business with best, most noble intentions, most of them are going to be bought, and among the most valuable assets they will have are permissions and data. If schools want to get their heads in the 21st century, thinking about protecting digital access to their students would be a great place to start.