Losing Ground to Facebook LOS ANGELES — MySpace said today it is cutting nearly 30 percent of its work force in a bid to become more efficient, bringing its staffing level more in line with its more popular rival, Facebook. The move comes less than two months after MySpace, a unit of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., hired former Facebook executive Owen Van Natta, 39, as its new chief executive. It also comes a day after data from tracking firm comScore show Facebook has caught up with MySpace in monthly U.S. visitors for the first time. “Simply put, our staffing levels were bloated and hindered our ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company,” Van Natta said in a statement. The cuts amount to about 420 people, bringing the total number of MySpace’s U.S. staff to 1,000. As of May, Facebook had about 850 employees worldwide, the vast majority in the United States. MySpace’s user base has stagnated at about 125 million worldwide users, while Facebook said its usage has doubled to more than 200 million in less than a year. But until now, MySpace still had the edge among U.S. users. Numbers from comScore show that in May, MySpace and Facebook both had about 70 million users apiece in the United States. MySpace, however, generates more revenue, according to Internet research firm eMarketer; it estimates that MySpace generated about $605 million in global advertising revenue last year, compared with $250 million for Facebook. MySpace’s revenue is expected to shrink next year while Facebook’s is seen as growing. MySpace said the restructuring crosses all of its U.S. divisions. Jonathan Miller, the former AOL chief executive hired as News Corp.’s chief digital officer in early April, said MySpace’s work force had grown “too big considering the realities of today’s marketplace.” The company gave no further comments. The cuts follow the departure of MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe as CEO in April. Co-founder Tom Anderson, who is every account holder’s first friend and acts as its glitch fixer, is also in ongoing talks about taking a creative product role away from his day-to-day responsibilities. Last month, Van Natta said he took the job at MySpace for the opportunity to build the site. He said MySpace, based in Beverly Hills, Calif., has distinguished itself from Facebook by allowing users to be “super-creative” in designing their pages. “I’m a big believer in personalization,” he said then at a technology conference in Carlsbad, Calif. “Our job is to make MySpace really, really great for everybody, and that means that the experience has to be different for everybody.” News Corp. has said MySpace is unusual for a social-networking site in that it is profitable, but noted that ad revenue in the quarter through March fell 16 percent and costs rose due to last fall’s rollout of MySpace Music, a song-streaming joint venture with major recording companies. The media company’s “other” segment, which houses MySpace, posted a loss of $89 million in the quarter, much worse than the $7 million loss a year earlier. ——— AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay in New York contributed to this report.
I think alot of minorities use myspace and alot of younger teens... not to mention the pedos I think alot of college students use facebook and I think facebook > myspace
I've mentioned this before, but I still can't figure out why there was a mass exodus from myspace to facebook this past year. Really odd that folks don't use both.
the spammers and the annoying advertising might be one reason... and the fact that facebook is caters to the college students.
The ability to mess with your own myspace layout marked the end of myspace. Each page was overly annoying with crappy layouts and music no one wanted to hear. It was just a pain to use sometimes really.
This is the bane of MySpace, IMO. Unless you're target audience is the age group 8 to 14, the sleek and easy-to-look-at style of Facebook will dominate. I almost puke when I look at almost every MySpace page I see.
Myspace has been obsolete for a few years now. Everything it offers, someone else already does better and faster. But it certainly had the market cornered on crappy laggy layouts that American Idol fans love so much.
The ****ty layouts and the nonstop spam quickly made myspace unbearable. Facebook got about 10 times better after you didn't always have to be notified when people sent you dumb requests to join their mob war or vampire hunt or whatever the hell.
Facebook is so much cleaner and simpler. Great way to reconnect with old friends from high school/college. Seems like there are more adults on Facebook too. MySpace is just for emo high school kids and crappy independent bands who weren't quick enough to reserve the domain for their band names.
I agree it's all about layout and the ability to actually communicate with your peers. Half the myspace profiles I go to have graphics and music still downloading a minute after the page opened. Then, there is so much crap you can't even find what you're looking for. While you're looking some crappy music starts blasting so you have to mute your computer or track down which music player or embedded youtube video is the cause. Myspace is like a tacky, pimped out old beater sedan with a furry dash that the owner thinks is cool while everyone else cringes at the thought of riding in it so much that they avoid the person. Facebook is clean, simple and actually has a purpose in allowing groups of people to communicate simultaneously and effortlessly. All that myspace has over facebook is that it can tell you which one of your friends should never be trusted to decorate your house.
Mine's just sitting there. I NEVER check it. I should delete it too. I used myspace A LOT back in 2002-2004ish....
Me too. Too much spam, always down, and log on to get my messages. The pages were just too customizable in a bad way. Facebook is a million times better.
Lol. Now that's funny. And I was thinking the same thing, but Myspace is awful and has been awful for awhile now. I deleted my account over a year ago. Facebook is more clean, more professional, and just overall better. Thank god you are not forced to listen to someone's "them song" as you enter their page. Just awful. I would have no idea why someone would want both. One social networking site is plenty. Why would you have profiles on each one?
