Entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Ioannou is the name associated with easyJet, easyCar, easyCruise, easyPizza and others.
With the launch of My Network TV in the States and its accompanying website who do consumers associate with the "My" prefix? My Network TV is designed to economical to produce and tightly coupled with its interactive site. Sister to the FOX network, My Network TV is owned by News Corporation. Where we see News Corporation we can read Rupert Murdoch.
Famously, News Corporation and Murdoch bought MySpace before signing a $900 million deal with Google. News Corporation also own the offshoot MySpace Records.
There are other significant "My" players though.
There is MyWay - a popular portal in Europe. MyWay has the MySearch search engine. As any search marketer will tell you, MySearch is powered by Ask. Why's that? MyWay is owned by Barry Diller's IAC.
Yahoo offers MyWeb as part of its social search platform but does not own the .com domain.
MyTravel, an United Kingdom based travel group, employs an estimated 15,000 full time staff.
The entirety of Malaysia has a good claim on My too. The .my domain suffix represents the country.
A quick a InURL search at Google for "www.my" shows nearly 3.5 million URLs match that pattern - though, of course, many of these URLs may simply have "www.my" partway through and not at the start of their address. Number one position for inurl:www.my is currently My-Symbian a portal for the smartphone operating system.
The word "My" is powerful. It represents a much more human call to action than "Login" or the second person "Your Account". Web sites which read to an audience (login, your account, etc) can often reinforce the outdated "online brochure" aspect of sites. The trend is very much towards inclusive, interactive and community-based sites, and so first person possessive pronouns are being keenly sought.
A key aspect to online community building is possession and ownership. If a user relates to a site then they may visit often, if a user feels they have some possession of the site then they may well visit it more often and contribute more often. When Digg user 'P9' announced his departure from the site he talked about his number one slot and his efforts. One interpretation of his resignation letter was that Digg's owners were an entity apportioned from the website itself.
In the States the focus will be on News Corporation's My Network TV and its ambitious mix of low cost programming with website interaction. Will the combination work? My Network TV has significant advertising revenue still to earn if it is to be counted alongside traditional and more established networks.
Whatever happens to My Network TV on air it looks as if "My" is likely to be a hot pronoun online for the next few years.
