In Other News…Van Natta Out as MySpace CEO
Question: How long does it take for a new CEO of a social media falling star to get his walking papers these days?
Answer: If you are Owen Van Natta of MySpace it takes just about 9 months.
Wow, I wonder if the time went quickly? It seems like just yesterday that the announcement of the former Facebook executive’s hiring was the start of a new era at MySpace that would make its climb back to the top of the social media heap. Instead the only news the site seems to generate is just how poorly it has performed and how much of waste of money and time it has been for News Corp. who acquired the company back in 2005 for $580 million.
The Wall Street Journal (that’s a News Corp. property that actually makes money and has some traction) reports
“While this may be a surprising turn of events for some of you, I am absolutely confident that this change is best for all parties involved and–most importantly–the MySpace business,” Jon Miller, News Corp.’s chief digital officer, said in an internal memo.
Mr. Miller, who oversees MySpace, hired Mr. Van Natta last April as part of a shakeup that saw MySpace founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson reassigned to different roles.
Mr. Van Natta, a former Facebook Inc. executive, was hired last year to turnaround MySpace, which has suffered from sagging advertising revenue and stagnant Web traffic.
“In talking to Owen about his priorities both personally and professionally going forward, we both agreed that it was best for him to step down at this time,” Mr. Miller said in a statement Wednesday.
Mr. Van Natta couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
By most accounts it appears that the infighting amongst the leadership at MySpace was pretty intense. Van Natta’s reputation as a tough negotiator may have been why he was hired but the rest of his reputation according to former co-workers was around his short fuse. Combine that kind of volatility with egos and the pressure to make something happen with a dying property and you have the makings of some serious fireworks.
So now that MySpace has once again put themselves in the headlines for more negative reasons is there any hope? Well, one sour note is the report from News Corp. executives that MySpace is falling short of minimum traffic levels that it has in place for a $900 million deal with Google. Not good.
But enter Rupert Murdoch who tried to spin his way through his thoughts on MySpace
“It’s not yet where we want it,” News Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch said about MySpace in an earnings call last week. He added that Web traffic had shown signs of stabilization. “We believe the stability points to progress the new management team has made to repositioning MySpace as the prime place where people share thoughts and ideas about music, entertainment and other popular content.”
No problem, Uncle Rupert, and the then the sugar plum fairies will come down and dance and all will be fine with the world. Things are not likely to get better any time soon. With all the talk of connecting social networks when is the last time that a list included MySpace?
MySpace Likes iLike Enough to Buy It
It was announced today the MySpace will be acquiring iLike for an undisclosed amount. MySpace’s press release makes everyone out to be giddy about the acquisition which is what one might expect. According to cnet though there was some underlying suspicion that iLike was purchased on the cheap.
No terms of the deal were disclosed, but reports have indicated that iLike was sold at quite a bargain–something in the neighborhood of $20 million total–because its ad-supported, streaming music model failed to rake in the profits that investors hoped it would.
OK, so struggling social networking entity, MySpace, buys supposedly struggling social music discovery service. A marriage made in mediocrity? cnet goes on to say that MySpace itself is having trouble in the space where it is supposedly concentrating.
Meanwhile, Owen Van Natta (MySpace CEO) claimed that MySpace Music is “doing extremely well” and that “we absolutely expect MySpace Music to be an important part of MySpace…for years to come.” Several months ago, rumors were swirling around the music industry that its performance hadn’t been up to expectations.
In addition there are questions as to how this union will affect iLike’s relationship with Facebook which is where most of their business was coming from.
The social network’s developer platform has been home to much of iLike’s activity, and now that it will be owned by Facebook’s closest rival, there’s a chance that Facebook could restrict or block the app. Van Natta, Facebook’s former chief operating officer, said that iLike’s apps are part of “a lot of different social networks’ experience. We’re excited about just continuing to expand that experience to other areas of entertainment that MySpace has assets in.”
If you are not dizzy from the spin it’s understandable. As MySpace struggles to define itself after its fall from social media grace, it is concentrating on music as well as gaming and possibly film. The iLike technology is being touted as a way to make this happen.
So here we are again with news from MySpace. Does it matter to you anymore? Is it even news any more? Tell us if are still a MySpace user or use it in our business plan. Inquiring minds want to know.
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MySpace Taking Up Some of Our Space
In all honesty, there is not much to talk about at the start of a week that truly moving toward the dog days of summer. Let’s take one more look at the Sun Valley meeting of last week to see if a gathering of the most influential media executives can garner something of interest. Errr…..not really. Best we can come up with is the Wall Street Journal report that MySpace is looking to focus on the entertainment space. Shocking! I feel like such a slacker when I get blindsided by this kind of breaking news. It’s now very apparent that if we didn’t have these kinds of meetings of these great minds we wouldn’t have the kind of insight and wisdom unavailable to us commoners like the following
News Corp. is planning to position its MySpace unit as a Web site for accessing entertainment and related information. The plans follow other recent moves by the media giant to try to reinvigorate the social networking site as it steadily loses ground to Facebook Inc.
In a brief interview, News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch said MySpace needs to be refocused “as an entertainment portal.” Mr. Murdoch described his vision for MySpace as a place where “people are looking for common interests.”
Wow, Mr. Murdoch really went out on a limb by describing a social networking site as a place where people are looking for common interests. If more next generation kind of talk like this is what comes from the Sun Valley conference then I guess we all need to pay attention more. This year wasn’t able to give us the kind of moment that last year brought here at Marketing Pilgrim.
Back to MySpace. With Owen Van Natta at the helm since April the company has cut its US staff by 30% and chopped 2/3 of the international presence. The site has been losing ground rapidly to Facebook and just about every other social networking site. In fact, the only time it seems to be in the news is about more bad news or almost no news. An example fromthe category of “You wouldn’t know this unless you had visited the site”
In recent weeks, MySpace has also dropped its longtime tagline “a place for friends,” and removed the “.com” from its name.
So now the once high-flyer is looking to formally embrace the crowd that it seems to have migrated to over time. Unless you are tied to the music biz is there a place anymore for MySpace as a viable social media option? What will it take for the site to re-invent itself or is it possibly too late for that? It’s Monday and you need to get your brains in gear so gnaw on that and leave us your thoughts.
MySpace Looks to Close Some Space
In the Google, Facebook and Twitter swirl of news and rumors that we all tend to concentrate there is that other guy, MySpace, that is still lurking about. Unfortunately, as news is coming out that there are layoffs and office closings on the international front, it may be appropriate to say that MySpace is limping about.
MySpace has already trimmed its domestic operations so this move comes as little surprise. TechCrunch UK is reporting this update and has the internal e-mail that was sent to employees regarding the move. (Note to self, nothing – repeat nothing – is private for a company anymore) Here are some highlights.
From: Owen Van Natta
Subject: IMPORTANT: PROPOSED INTERNATIONAL RESTRUCTURE
Importance: HighEveryone,
Last week we made a number of changes to MySpace’s domestic structure in order to create a leaner, more nimble organization. Today, we are announcing the next step in our overall restructuring effort – a proposal to streamline our operations abroad.
Unlike our recent domestic restructuring announcement, what we are announcing today is a formal proposal we intend to implement, rather than an executed plan. As required by laws in countries where we operate, we will not implement the plan until we have consulted with potentially affected employees. As a result, even though the plan we are proposing today would apply to all international divisions of the company, a finalized international restructuring will be put into action over a period of days.
Similar to our domestic restructuring, our international plan is designed to rein in growth in staff and expenses that we cannot sustain. Our proposal would reduce MySpace’s international staff from 450 employees to approximately 150 employees and close at least 4 of our offices outside the United States.
…….. As with the domestic changes we made last week, these proposed international reductions and eliminations will be extremely challenging – professionally and personally. These are difficult decisions and they are essential to our financial well-being and the re-establishment of our overall growth strategy.
……….. The last two weeks have been tough for everyone. The employees who leave us played an important role in the successes of MySpace in these international markets, and I thank them for their hard and dedicated work. The restructuring steps we have taken have laid the groundwork for an exciting new chapter of innovation for MySpace. I look forward to working with you all and speaking with you in the coming days.
Thank you,
Owen
The potential office closings are among Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Sweden, and Spain and they will be placed under review. One commenter on the blog has reported that the Moscow office will close as of June 30 but there is no confirmation of that.
So what’s the deal with MySpace? While they appear to be the red-headed stepchild of the social media space they still have a considerable number of users. I personally don’t know any of them but that doesn’t mean anything (other than the fact that I am not a pre-pubescent kid who is a music fan).
How do you use MySpace, if at all? Is it still part of your social media strategy or sphere? Let us know. As always, we can talk all we want but until someone who actually is still active in MySpace chimes in, it’s just talk.
