Myspace to axe 500 employees tomorrow
News Corp's Myspace the struggling social network site, the could be Facebook site is due to lay off 500 to 600 employees.
All Things D reported that Myspace has set Jan. 11 as the day when it announces job cuts. It currently employs about 1,000 people and is currently working towards finalizing the exact number of employees to be fired.
Also PCWorld reported that Myspace had laid off 30 employees last month in China coupled with the departure of its CEO.
The restructuring report follows its attempt to stay afloat since its nemesis Facebook trumped it to take the top social network crown in 2008. In fact in November 2010 Myspace launched a new service in conjunction with Facebook called Mashup. The feature allows MySpace users to import preferences from their Facebook profile to MySpace.
MySpace was founded in 2003 by Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolf. The duo met while working for Xdrive in 1999. Later they started their own company Responsebase which was bought by Intermix Media. Initially the site was used by employees at Intermix and at its peak had more than 100 million users. The site was bought by News Corporation in 2005 for $580 million.
Lately, Myspace has been focusing on entertainment related content primarily music, as it is pretty popular among musicians who used the site to promote their music.
Its recent integration with Facebook leverages on its entertainment quotient. Mike Jones, CEO of MySpace, said: We are thrilled to further our collaboration with Facebook through Mashup with Facebook. This new feature is a great illustration of our strategy around social entertainment and enabling the real-time stream. The stream is one of our most popular features on MySpace, and it is now delivering an even richer entertainment experience of relevant content for our users to enjoy.
The strategy to ignite the Facebook Connect button was to somehow retain the 130 million users it currently has. Its future is encapsulated in a statement issued by Jones with All Voices that said: MySpace is a not a social network anymore. It is now a social entertainment destination.
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