Today, NewsCorp — the owner of media giants FoxNews, The New York Post, Times of London and dot com giant MySpace — announced a staggering $203 million loss for the previous quarter ending June 30. This is down from a $1.1 billion profit they took a year ago.

The incredible part of the story, though is why they took the loss. In a report published by the Los Angeles Times, MySpace was the culprit, tagging the once darling social networking icon as "troubled."

This has become life in the dot com fast lane. Companies that appeared to defy conventional wisdom to reach superpower status now find themselves facing an old fashioned Come to Jesus. Most people don't know that, despite the gushing news headlines and astronomical traffic numbers, precisely none of the "successful" social networking companies are turning a profit. In fact, the only two companies that appear to have found a way to make a legit business out of the mass market web world are Google and Yahoo!.

Right now, the rage is Facebook and Twitter, two social networking tools I use with varying regularity. But I am not committed to either. Why? Because if one thing is true it's that it is only a matter of time before they, too, go the way of MySpace. I will date them, and perhaps seriously, but I won't marry them.

A year ago, the good guys at Pass Along announced a supposed Christian music industry saving deal with EMI, whereby the two would put digital music stores into all Christian bookstore web sites. The rumor was the going price was $100 a site. Meaning, essentially free. To my knowledge, and everyone else I've asked, absolutely nothing happened after the mailing of their press release. EMI told everyone this was the future and to jump on board or miss the train. Two weeks ago, Pass Along Networks went belly up, saying their investors had decided to not renew their initial funding loan.

Pass Along had a great idea. They just couldn't find a way to monetize it. Bottom line was, they had no premium content that was in demand, and no way to scale big without incurring massive expenses — which could not be covered from virtually no revenue.

Where does that leave you and me? Well, it still comes back to old fashioned marketing:

1. Keep social networking

Do Facebook. Keep your MySpace. Twitter if you are famous and/or have a reason to relay small bits if info to friends. You can be sure they will be replaced a year from now, but if you aren't in their game today, you will miss the next wave of the future.

2. Invest in your own brand

Despite what everyone now wants to somehow believe, you always get what you pay for. If you get something for free, you can't complain about service (or lack thereof). Pay someone who knows what they are doing to create a real, live web portal, find your own customers, super serve them, and sell things straight from your web store.

3. Hire a team and listen to them

Don't spend a bunch of money on what you want to do, and then ask an expert what to do now that the money is gone. If you can't or won't run your own business, then hire someone to do it for you. And yes, I said hire, which means paying them in cash. Not favors. Not in free product. Not with promises of some future, nebulous up side. Pony up or don't complain about a lack of support.

4. Don't expect technology to solve all your problems

Technology has to be a central focus to your marketing strategy, but it is not going to be your salvation. The more we have, the more we want and need. And the more dependent you get on technology, the more it will hurt when the smallest little thing (like Twitter going down for three hours this week) will totally disrupt your world.