Viacom (VIA-B) has believed the Internet will eventually fragment in a similar way broadcast television did with the introduction of cable TV for some time.
In response they've been developing hundreds of micro-sites on the Internet catering to a number of niches through their MTV division.
Their newest creation Flux, has been developed from the belief that niche interests will be the future of online strategies.
So rather than create a social network which competes with portals, MySpace or FaceBook, Viacom is building a system where along with personalized pages with photos, video, blogs and friends, etc., these pages will be able to be taken with them anywhere within the flux network someone wants to go.
As Richard Siklos, writing for Fortune says, "The twist is these personal pages will also appear when they sign into any other MTV site, as well as any third-party sites in the Flux network"
You will also be able to take content from your Flux page and copy it to any social networking site you belong to.
On the Flux homepage they describe it this way: "Flux powers the communities on your favorite websites and lets you take your profile, friends, and content with you across the social web. Whenever you see the logo on a website, you can join that community with a single click and take all your stuff with you."
The projected fragmentation of the market by Viacom is the motivator behind this, as I mentioned earlier. Flux has been created in anticipation of that becoming an increasing reality in the online marketplace. The idea is to make it simplify the registration processes across numerous sites of interest, increase the time spent there and market TV tie-ins across the variety of channels for advertisers and users.
The type of sites Flux is looking for, according to the site, are "music artists, influencer blogs, athletes, video content sites, pop culture lovers, or any website that is harnessing a creative community to produce original content."
Flux's partner in the deal is Social Project, which was originally named TagWorld. Social Project will handle the advertising end of the deal, and will share proceeds with web sites which are part of their "publishing partner" network.
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