By James Caldwell, PWTorch columnist

Variety published a significant article today detailing WWE's business initiative to energize the WWE fanbase through the WWE Universe social networking website.

WWE is trying to grab wrestling fans away from Myspace and Facebook to interact with other fans on WWE's website to help generate more ad revenue and video views that contain sponsor messages prior to the video.

The push for social networking follows WWE reporting stagnant website revenue in the third quarter 2008. Digital media revenue was only $7.9 million compared to $7.7 million in the prior year quarter. A mere $200,000 increase in online revenue is not acceptable when WWE has marked this area of business as a growth division.

More alarming is the drop in website revenue, specifically. Although WWE Shop increased by $800,000, WWE.com revenue dropped by $600,000. Fewer ads were being served to visitors and WWE received a lower pay-out rate.

Enter WWE Universe, which Variety reports has helped boost views of original website videos, such as the Dirt Sheet, by 77 percent and increased ad views by 95 percent. WWE is addressing the issue by increasing more video offerings to fans.

"They want more interaction with talent and richer media," said Brian Kalinowski, WWE general manager of digital media. "We'll be making the transition to a site that's more image and video-heavy."

WWE currently has 200,000 members, 40 percent of which are female fans. That's in line with the typical ratio, as WWE Raw usually draws a 60-65 percent male fanbase.

Caldwell's Analysis: One way WWE can utilize the WWE Universe site is to survey fans on whether or not they're ordering a given PPV coming up, such as Survivor Series on Sunday. What's the deciding factor? Is it pure economy? Were fans not sold on the main event? Is John Cena headling a PPV not worth spending $40 on? WWE has direct access to a significant 200,000-strong "sample audience" to get direct feedback on why certain things are or are not working from a business-side.

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