MySpace Archives - The Blog Herald

MySpace Gets It’s Sexy Back, Justin Timberlake Reveals New Platform [Video]

November 16, 2012 by James Johnson

Justin Timblerlake was hired to help bring the sexy back to Myspace and based on the platforms newly revealed design his team and the already established team at MySpace have met that goal.

The new MySpace which was designed with all new coding has gotten back to its roots as a platform for artists. This time around the company uses new social media connections to help artists grow out their music base.

Timberlake joined Facebook last year with partners Chris and Tim Vanderhook who purchased the once $500+ million site for just $35 million. [Read more…]

Justin Timberlake To Staff Office For Myspace Revival Attempt

November 2, 2011 by James Johnson

Singer and Actor Justin Timberlake plans to open an office and staff it with six people who he hopes will help him revive Myspace from the throws of oblivon.

In June Specific Media purchased an ownership stake in the company led by brothers Chris, Tim and Russell Vanderhook and now we have learned that Timberlake is expected to play a big role in the sites revival.

Company CEO Tim Vanderhook made the announced that Timberlake would hold an office at the company and TechCrunch has reported that “Timberlake will play a ‘major role’ in strategy and creative direction for the beleaguered social network. The release makes no mention of exactly how much of a stake the pop star will have.” [Read more…]

Myspace employees down to 200, will Justin Timberlake turn things around?

July 1, 2011 by Paul Farol

Myspace. Does it really have a heart after firing more employees?

From 1,400 employees two years ago, the number of employees at Myspace now number just around 200. This development follows after News Corp. sold the social networking site to Specific Media and after Justin Timberlake, who portrayed Sean Parker in the movie “Social Network”, joined the company.

Myspace, was sold for $580 million to Rupert Murdoch. The plan back then, according to Business Insider was to “merge MySpace into Yahoo and save Yahoo from Microsoft’s clutches…as long as Yahoo agreed to value MySpace at something like $10 billion.” Myspace was recently sold for just $30 million.

Tim Vanderhook, Specific Media CEO, is practically singing the same song. According to an article in CNET plans to use Myspace to build a “digital media company on par with Yahoo, AOL, Facebook, and all the other big names out there.”

[Read more…]

MySpace Gobbled Up By Specific Media For Very Little Cash

June 29, 2011 by James Johnson

In 2005 many analysts saw News Corps’ $580 million buyout of social network MySpace as a huge success when the company more than doubled their monthly traffic numberx from 20 million to 70 million users during the first year of acquisition and now just six years later the company has announced the sale of the one-time media darling for $35 million.

The social network was picked up on Wednesday by Specific Media with Specific CEO Tim Vanderhook noting:

“Myspace is a recognized leader that has pioneered the social media space. The company has transformed the ways in which audiences discover, consume and engage with content online.”

After being purchased by News Corp. the site underwent a major site redesign as they continued to bleed up to 1 million users per month from the company’s highest levels witnessed in December 2008. While new features were added to the network and more emphasis was placed on artists and musicians the company failed to gain the mass appeal they once held.

For their part Specific Media, a digital media company has promised to continue in Myspace’s current direction.

Vanderhook continued: [Read more…]

News Corp. Prepping MySpace For Sale

April 27, 2011 by James Johnson

News Corp. is currently prepping one-time internet social media darling MySpace for sale and various venture capital firms and other privately held companies are expected to place bids for the entertainment hub.

The website, purchased by News Corp. in 2005 for $580 million has been prepping for sale since the company spoke with shareholders during their February earnings call.

According to Mashable:

The company “recorded a $275 million pre-tax charge for the impairment of goodwill related to the Digital Media Group and an organizational restructuring at MySpace.”

The Wall Street Journal (also owned by News Corp.) is predicting that the site will fetch somewhere in the vicinity of $100 million with several frontrunners vying for the site including Redscout Ventures, Thomas H. Lee Partners and Criterion Capital Partners LLC. Criterion you may recall also owns social network Bebo. [Read more…]

Should Google Buy Myspace?

January 31, 2011 by Darnell Clayton

Hailed once as the king of social networking, Myspace fortunes have declined as of late, with Newscorp reportedly trying to sell the “social entertainment network” or spin it off as a separate company as a last resort.

While Myspace’s future is bleak, the company (or rather what’s left of it) may have some value to Google in the search giant’s quest to find relevance in the age of social networking.

Although attempts at reviving Myspace itself is futile, an acquisition by Google might be something beneficial to both parties for at least a couple of reasons. [Read more…]

Myspace Execs Plan Exit Strategy, Look To Sell In 2011

January 13, 2011 by James Johnson

It’s official, News Corp., the parent company to Myspace has announced that they will attempt to sell off the one-time social media darling sometime in the next year.

It was predicted that a sale may be imminent when yesterday Myspace announced that 47% of their global work staff (approx. 500 employees) had been laid off.

Myspace CEO Mike Jones has announced that the company will attempt to sell the failing company before it’s too late to salvage.

If a sale doesn’t occur, Myspace’s Rosabel Tao tells Bloomberg:

“News Corp. is assessing a number of possibilities including a sale, a merger and a spinout [sic]. The process has just started.”

The sale has become a more crucial strategy for News Corp. who has been forced to sign a new search revenue deal with Google that offers no guaranteed revenue from searches. Previously MySpace was guaranteed $900 million in search revenue. [Read more…]

Myspace Is Dying. Can It Be Saved?

January 11, 2011 by Darnell Clayton

After redesigning their profile pages in an attempt to reinvent themselves, Myspace has just announced that they are laying almost half of their workforce.

Today Myspace is implementing a significant organizational restructuring that will result in a 47 percent staff reduction across all divisions globally and impact about 500 employees. With our recent relaunch as an entertainment destination for Gen Y, we introduced a much tighter focus, a significantly streamlined product and an updated technology platform.

In international, Myspace, Inc. will be entering into strategic local partnerships in the UK, Germany and Australia to manage advertising sales and content. (paidContent) [Read more…]

Myspace Leaks User Data Just Like Facebook

October 23, 2010 by James Johnson

We’ve been giving Facebook a lot of guff lately over their privacy flaps, but they aren’t the only large social network giving away user data, MySpace has been suffering from a similar type of user data leaks.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that MySpace user IDs are being leaked to advertisers, which in turn is providing user names, photos, user locations, gender and even the age found on the users MySpace profile.

There is one big difference however with MySpace, unlike Facebook they do not require that a real name, gender or even country of origin is entered. Also, only information that has already been made public is accessible, so while it cuts down the time needed for advertisers to gather information about users, they aren’t gathering information they couldn’t data mine on their own. [Read more…]