• Tech
• Gadgets
• Mobile
• Enterprise
• CrunchBase
• More
  • Beta Invites
  • Elevator Pitches
  • Gillmor Gang
  • Podcasts
  • TechCrunch50
  • TechCrunch UK
  • TechCrunch France
  • TechCrunch Japan

MySpace

MySpace is one of the world’s largest social networks, with about 125 million users. Originally inspired by Friendster, MySpace quickly grew to become the world’s largest social network, before being overtaken by Facebook. User pages are highly customizable and support integration with widgets such as Slide or YouTube. MySpace provides users with a way to connect around content and culture.

MySpace was started as a side project of the internet marketing company eUniverse (now called Intermix Media) in August 2003. Brad Greenspan, then founder and CEO of eUniverse oversaw the project, which was also led by Chris DeWolfe (later CEO), Josh Berman, and Tom Anderson (soon to be President). It officially launched in January 2004.

By February 2004, MySpace reached 1 million registered users. By November 2004, that number had reached 5 million. In July, 2005 News Corporation bought eUniverse (renaming it Intermix Media) for $580 M, of which approximately $327 M was the valuation of MySpace. At this time, the site had 20 million registered users. In mid 2007, News Corporation contemplated selling 25% of MySpace stock to Yahoo! in a deal that would have valued the site at $12 B, though this never went through.

After being acquired, MySpace’s revenues grew rapidly, as News Corporation pursued lucrative advertising deals. In August 2006, Google made a $900 M agreement to provide search and advertising directly on the MySpace site, which is set to expire in June 2010.

In mid 2008, MySpace participated in a major site redesign. Throughout its history, critics have often cited the chaotic and disorganized interface as a severe drawback to usability of the site. This redesign made the main page more streamlined and clean.

In late 2006, Universal Music Group sued MySpace for millions in damages from copyright infringement. This suit was settled in mid 2008 by the launch of MySpace Music, a site where users can listen to streaming songs from all sorts of artists. To supplement this venture, MySpace acquired iLike in mid 2009. MySpace had previously also launched a record label in 2005 and musicians such as Lily Allen and Sean Kingston were first discovered through MySpace.

In mid 2007, MySpace acquired PhotoBucket for $250 M in cash, plus an additional $50 M earn-out. By late 2009, News Corporation sold a 2/3 stake in Photobucket to a group of investors valuing the company at $60 M, over 80% less than the acquisition price.

Since 2008, user growth has stagnated and page views and other metrics have fallen. In April 2009, longtime CEO and co-founder Chris DeWolfe was replaced by Owen Van Natta, in a publicized firing. President and head of product, Tom Anderson, was kept on, but in a different position. Two months following this, MySpace announced it was laying off 30% of its workforce amounting to 420 people.

Milestones

• Acquired iLike for $20M. (8/17/09)
  Posted 9/24/09 at 2:42pm
• MySpace — Site reaches 125 Million registered users (6/09)
  Posted 11/3/09 at 11:02pm
• MySpace — MySpace partners with IODA, a digital distribution company for Independent music (10/22/08)
  Posted 10/23/08 at 12:06pm
• MySpace — MySpace Announces Global Partnership with RIM (9/11/08)
  Posted 10/7/08 at 12:46pm
• MySpace — Vodafone teams up with MySpace to Create Web 2.0 Music platform (6/30/08)
  Posted 6/30/08 at 3:54pm
• MySpace — MySpace Uses Google Gears To Power Messaging (5/28/08)
  Posted 7/2/08 at 10:16am
• MySpace — $605M revenue in 2008 (2008)
  Posted 11/3/09 at 11:02pm
• Acquired by Fox Interactive Media for $580M. (7/1/05)
  Posted 8/20/07 at 10:59pm
• Allen Hurff, Senior VP Engineering added. (2/05)
  Posted 6/30/09 at 10:27am
• Rebekah Horne, SVP International added.
  Posted 7/15/09 at 10:56pm
• Mark Rosenbaum, CFO added.
  Posted 10/5/09 at 8:27am
• Wenda Millard, Ad Sales added.
  Posted 8/20/09 at 12:51pm
• Jamie Kantrowitz, VP, Marketing and Communications added.
  Posted 8/3/09 at 2:50pm
• Colin Digiaro, Co-Founder, SVP Sales added.
  Posted 7/30/09 at 4:30pm
• Mike Jones, COO added.
  Posted 7/22/09 at 9:33am
• Russ Nemhauser, Web Platform Architect added.
  Posted 7/16/09 at 9:40pm
• Katie Geminder, SVP of User Experience and Design added.
  Posted 7/15/09 at 11:08pm
• Ali Partovi, SVP Business Development added.
  Posted 10/14/09 at 9:12pm
• Hadi Partovi, SVP Technology added.
  Posted 10/14/09 at 9:13pm
• E.J. Hilbert, Director of Security Enforcement added.
  Posted 6/23/09 at 9:51pm
• Travis Katz, SVP & Managing Director, International added.
  Posted 6/22/09 at 11:14pm
• Kennard Dee, Development Lead added.
  Posted 6/20/09 at 9:48pm
• Shawn Gold, CMO-SVP Marketing & Content added.
  Posted 6/5/09 at 6:20am
• Jason Feffer, VP, Operations added.
  Posted 5/29/09 at 3:15pm
• Mooky Desai, Director Systems Engineering added.
  Posted 5/20/09 at 9:00am
• Hemanshu Nigam, Chief Security Officer added.
  Posted 5/14/09 at 11:01am
• Steve Mummolo, Executive Creative Director added.
  Posted 5/5/09 at 3:11pm
• Richard Rosenblatt, Chairman added.
  Posted 5/4/09 at 1:10am
• Jason Hirschhorn, Chief Product Officer added.
  Posted 4/29/09 at 2:34am
• Owen Van Natta, CEO added.
  Posted 4/24/09 at 8:31am
• Frank Hajdu, Director, Business Development added.
  Posted 3/24/09 at 8:53am
• Jamie Kantrowitz, SVP International Marketing added.
  Posted 3/24/09 at 8:45am
• Max Engel, Product Lead, MySpaceID added.
  Posted 11/25/08 at 12:25pm
• Tim Schulz, Senior Product Manager added.
  Posted 11/13/08 at 12:24am
• Valeh Vakili, SVP, Sales Strategy & Operations added.
  Posted 10/29/08 at 7:47pm
• Andy Wiedlin, VP East Coast Sales added.
  Posted 10/29/08 at 7:34pm
• Mitchell Kreuch, VP Eastern Sales added.
  Posted 10/29/08 at 7:26pm
• Ulf Waschbusch, Director of Product Management, Mobile added.
  Posted 9/24/08 at 2:21am
• Atsushi Taira, CEO - MySpace Japan added.
  Posted 8/4/08 at 10:37am
• Abe Thomas, Vice President Online Marketing added.
  Posted 7/30/08 at 1:22am
• Tish Whitcraft, Senior Vice President Customer Care added.
  Posted 7/30/08 at 1:18am
• Angela Courtin, Senior Vice President Marketing added.
  Posted 7/30/08 at 1:15am
• Manu Thapar, Senior Vice President Engineering added.
  Posted 7/30/08 at 1:12am
• Amit Kapur, COO added.
  Posted 7/29/08 at 2:55pm
• John Faith, GM and Vice President Mobile added.
  Posted 7/26/08 at 5:35pm
• Steve Pearman, Senior Vice President Product Strategy added.
  Posted 7/26/08 at 5:35pm
• Russell Dunn, Sr. Technical Project Manager added.
  Posted 7/12/08 at 1:56pm
• Jeff Berman, President of Sales and Marketing added.
  Posted 6/16/08 at 7:26pm
• Tom Andrus, Senior Vice President Products added.
  Posted 6/15/08 at 2:10pm
• Aber Whitcomb, CTO added.
  Posted 5/26/08 at 6:26pm
• Jason Oberfest, SVP, Business Development and GM, MySpace Open Platform added.
  Posted 5/22/08 at 10:59am
• Carol Werner, West Coast Sales added.
  Posted 5/19/08 at 9:06am
• William Kapke, Senior Software Architect added.
  Posted 5/17/08 at 10:13am
• Dani Dudeck, Vice President of Global Communications added.
  Posted 5/16/08 at 1:49pm
• Jim Benedetto, Senior Vice President Technology added.
  Posted 5/12/08 at 9:03am
• Brad Greenspan, Founder & CEO (Intermix) added.
  Posted 4/13/08 at 9:32pm
• Josh Berman, Co-Founder / COO added.
  Posted 8/20/07 at 11:09pm
• Tom Anderson, Co-Founder & President added.
  Posted 8/20/07 at 11:08pm
• Chris DeWolfe, Co-founder & CEO added.
  Posted 8/20/07 at 11:06pm
• Nada Stirratt, Chief Revenue Officer added.
  Posted 10/15/09 at 1:20pm
• Dustin Finer, Chief People Officer added.
  Posted 10/15/09 at 1:39pm
• Mike Macadaan, VP Product added.
  Posted 10/15/09 at 8:38pm
• David Robinson, Heading up Mobile Experience added.
  Posted 10/27/09 at 9:21am
• Mitch McAlister, Director, Mobile Product Management and Strategy added.
  Posted 10/27/09 at 3:18pm
• Mitch McAlister, Director, International Product Management and Strategy added.
  Posted 10/27/09 at 3:18pm
• Mitch McAlister, Executive Producer added.
  Posted 10/27/09 at 3:18pm
• Mitch McAlister, Product Manager added.
  Posted 10/27/09 at 3:18pm

Videos

Screenshots

Products

MySpace

edit

MySpace Mobile App

edit

Tags	iphone-app

The new mobile app, available on the iPhone, allows users to keep in touch with their MySpace account through their mobile device.

Above: MySpace Mobile App Screenshot -- #1
Uploaded: 7/10/08

Videos

MySpaceID

edit

Launch Date

June 26, 2008

MySpaceID is MySpace’s data portability standards project. The project essentially makes key user data, including (1) Publicly available basic profile information, (2) MySpace photos, (3) MySpace videos, and (4) friend networks, available to partners via their (previousy internal) RESTful API, along with user authentication via OAuth.

The key goal is to allow users to maintain key personal data at sites like MySpace and not have it be locked up in an island. Previously users could turn much of this data into widgets and add them to third party sites. But that doesn’t bridge the gap between independent, autonomous websites, MySpace says. Every site remains an island.

But with MySpaceID, partners will be able to access MySpace user data, combine it with their own, and present it on their sites outside of the normal widget framework. Friends lists can be syncronized, for example. Or Twitter may use the data to recommend other Twitter users who are your MySpace friends.

Above: myspacecom
Uploaded: 3/23/09

Traffic Analytics

Quantcast

Compete

Sources

1. News Corp in $580m internet buy (news.bbc.co.uk) []
2. Breaking: MySpace Close To Acquiring iLike For $20 Million (techcrunch.com) []
3. Vodafone teams up with MySpace to Create Web 2.0 Music platform (vodafone.com) []
4. MySpace Shows Facebook How It’s Done: Google Gears To Power Messaging (techcrunch.com) []
5. Citation Needed []
6. IODA PARTNERS WITH MYSPACE MUSIC []
7. huffingtonpost.com []
8. content.usatoday.com []