Subscribe by EmailDoes MySpace see the writing on the wall?
April 23, 2009 by Chip | 8 commentsOh, wait – writing on the Wall is a Facebook thing. But increasingly, so is MySpace’s business. The erstwhile king of social media sites has been deposed by Facebook, which now has over 200 million profiles. Everybody has a Facebook page – but who do you know who is still on MySpace but who isn’t a member of a struggling band with shockingly bad taste in web design?
MySpace’s loss of popularity has not been lost on its owner, News Corp. With Google’s advertising deal expiring next year and unlikely to be renewed under the same terms, they’ve realized that they need to make some changes. So they’ve unceremoniously given the boot to the backside of (now former) CEO Chris DeWolfe, who will “serve as a strategic advisor” (translation: “when we want any more of your bright ideas, we’ll toss you a nickel, Chris”). Tom Anderson, the founder and president will be euphemistically “assuming a new role in the organization.”
MySpace’s new CEO will be Owen Van Natta, the former COO of Facebook – who will now get to take on his old boss Mark Zuckerberg mano a mano.
What do you think? Can MySpace make a comeback? Do we really want it to?
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Heh, let em burn.
My thoughts exactly. I’m not a big fan of either Rupert Murdoch or MySpace.
I’m not a fan of Rupert Murdoch myself, but I’ve been using MySpace since before he bought it and I personally hope it doesn’t go belly up. Its the only way I can keep in touch with some of my high school buds.
Better get them to move over to Facebook or Twitter, Joseph.
MySpace is going to go to where the good ideas but mediocre implementation goes, like Altavista…
Yep — someone comes along and does it better, and the originator fails to keep up.
I don’t use either but everytime I see MySpace I’m amazed at how stunning ugly it is.
I have actually seen one or two MySpace pages that were aesthetically pleasing — but it is truly amazing how so many self-styled artists can create MySpace pages that assault the senses.