Myspace gains 1 million users, touts more music than Spotify. Maybe Justin Timberlake and friends weren't so crazy after all. Myspace, the once dominant social-networking site that faded into obscurity during Facebook's rise to dominance, added 1 million new users over the past month, according to the company. "The numbers tell an amazing story of strong momentum and dramatic change for Myspace," said Tim Vanderhook, CEO of Myspace. "And the 1 million-plus new user accounts we've seen in the last 30 days validates our approach. " A team of investors bought out Myspace in June for the fire-sale price of $35 million. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. paid (many would say overpaid) $580 million for it in 2005. The new owners, most notably pop star/actor Timberlake, have effectively stopped trying to compete with Facebook and other social sites, instead focusing on Myspace's superior platform for posting and listening to music.
By comparison, Internet darling Spotify, which launched in the United States in July, was claiming 15 million songs at that time. May MySpace Be A Lesson To Us. My, how MySpace has fallen down and down the rabbit hole of no return. The site was briefly valued at $12 billion in 2007, whereas today MySpace will be lucky to sell for a fraction of the $580 million News Corp. paid for the site. Because the audience has fled to other, sunnier, shores. According to The Telegraph, MySpace lost 10 million unique users between January and February of this year, going from 73 million to 63 million in a matter of four weeks. This time last year, when the site began the first in a series of major relaunches, MySpace attracted 95 million unique users. Parent company News Corporation is trying to sell off the ailing social network, but there’s not a lot of interest.
MySpace?s death spiral: insiders say it?s due to bets on Los Angeles and Microsoft ? Scobleizer. I’ve been watching the death spiral MySpace is in for a while. Back in December I interviewed CEO Mike Jones onstage at LeWeb. Back then I thought maybe MySpace could pull it out, but since then I’ve learned the MySpace “plane” that’s in a death spiral has increased its velocity — in the wrong direction. Since talking with Mike in December I’ve been asking people involved what went wrong and two common themes have evolved: 1. Their bet on Microsoft technology doomed them for a variety of reasons. 2.
Let me explain. The problem was, as Myspace started losing to Facebook, they knew they needed to make major changes. Here, let’s go back and watch the video with YFrog’s CEO, Jack Levin. Workers inside MySpace tell me that this infrastructure, which they say has “hundreds of hacks to make it scale that no one wants to touch” is hamstringing their ability to really compete. Which gets me to the Los Angeles issue. This bet on Los Angeles doomed MySpace when Facebook came along. MySpace est à vendre. Parallèlement à la présentation très attendue du Daily, le premier quotidien 100% Ipad, le groupe News Corporation de Rupert Murdoch a confirmé mercredi 2 janvier qu'il était à la recherche d'un nouveau propriétaire pour le réseau social MySpace, acheté au prix fort en 2005 et qu'il peine à relancer, rapporte l'AFP.
Le mois dernier, MySpace avait annoncé la suppression de près de la moitié de ses effectifs, soit 500 postes, après le nouveau positionnement du site comme rendez-vous des amateurs d'actualité culturelle, et un analyste de Wedbush Securities, Lou Kerner, avait estimé que cela pouvait aider à préparer une vente.
Dans les comptes du deuxième trimestre de l'exercice décalé de News Corp, les résultats de My Space figurent dans la catégorie «autres», dont les pertes d'exploitation ont été creusées de 125 à 156 millions de dollars. Cette aggravation est largement due à «une baisse des recettes publicitaires et de recherche sur My Space», a indiqué le groupe. Myspace set to be sold, but who would buy it? It’s far from a secret that Myspace has been in trouble for some time. Huge recent layoffs have been accompanied by talk that the company’s future was being judged in quarters, not years.
Now parent company News Corp says that it’s looking to sell all, or at least some, of Myspace. As Paid Content reports, COO Chase Carey explained yesterday, “The new MySpace has been very well received by the market and we have some very encouraging metrics. But the plan to allow MySpace to reach its full potential may be best achieved under a new owner.” There’s little surprise that Myspace might be offloaded, but the real question is, who would buy it? The Bebo comparison Bebo is a good place to look for a comparison.
Bebo wouldn’t have to do reach its previous heights of course, as long as it turns a profit Criterion will presumably be happy with its investment. Myspace’s brand problem So, could the same future await Myspace?