Social Networking Watch: News on the Social Networking and Social Media Industry

Myspace Gains 1 Million Users

CNN - Feb 13 - Maybe Justin Timberlake and friends weren't so crazy after all. Myspace added 1M new users over the past month, according to the company. A team of investors bought out Myspace in June for the fire-sale price of $35M. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. paid $580M 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. Monday's release from Specific Media credited the site's new music player, with access to more than 42M songs, as offering the Web's biggest collection of free music. But with Spotify beginning to limit the number of songs users with free accounts can play, it seems possible there could be space for a new online music player serving up similar content for free.

by Doug Gross
See full article at CNN

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Murdoch On MySpace: “We Screwed Up In Every Way Possible”

SLASH GEAR - Jan 13 - Outspoken News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch has given a blunt summary of the MySpace debacle, describing the company’s attempt at the social networking market as having “screwed up in every way possible.” "We] learned lost of valuable expensive lessons” the exec admitted. Having spent over half a billion dollars on MySpace, News Corp. finally sold the site in June last year for a mere $39m.

by Chris Davies
See full article at Slash Gear

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Myspace Reinvents Itself As An “Entertainment Experience"

VENTUREBEAT - Jan 10 - Panasonic’s big bet in 2012 is Myspace, a social network that has been steadily losing cachet since 2008. Panasonic trotted out Justin Timberlake at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to try and bring sexy back to the pioneering website known for social networking, band promotion and really bad web design, all while making Panasonic TVs more integrated into your social life. Myspace is staking its reinvention on Myspace TV, a service that lets you chat with friends, share shows and internet videos, and discover what’s popular among other Myspace TV viewers. Myspace TV will be integrated into Panasonic Viera televisions, giving the social network a powerful leg up in its reinvention. Myspace TV will launch this spring.

by Dylan Tweney
See full article at Venture Beat

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MySpace Out Of Top Ten Most Visited Social Networks

MARKETING MAGAZINE - Dec 15 - MySpace is continuing to slump, falling out the UK's top ten most visited social networks for the first time ever, according to Experian Hitwise.

by Matthew Chapman
See full article at Marketing Magazine

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Justin Timberlake To Re-Launch MySpace In 2012

DIGITAL SPY - Nov 1 - Justin Timberlake is set to take on the social networking responsibilities of his movie counterpart Sean Parker and breathe new life into MySpace in 2012. Timberlake claimes that the site will undergo revolutionary changes, stating that, “It will be an entertainment hub. People will go there to explore their artistic side and we will give them tools to do that.

by Mayer Nissim
See full article at Digital Spy

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MySpace Relaunch Will Put Its Focus Back on Music

READ WRITE WEB - Aug 23 - MySpace went through several attempts to reinvent itself before being sold by News Corp in June. Its new marketing head Al Dejewski will shift its focus more intently on music and try to compete against the likes of Spotify and iTunes. MySpace was sold to Specific Media in June for $35M, six years after News Corp bought it for $580M.

by John Paul Titlow
See full article at Read Write Web

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MySpace Loses Another Friend

BUSINESS INSURANCE - Aug 7 - Julie Riggs received some justice in late July when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court decision and revived her claim that News Corp., previous owner of MySpace, breached an implied promise to pay her for an idea to set up a celebrity verification service on the network. Ms. Riggs' allegation that MySpace had stolen her idea for a celebrity verification service will go back to federal court where it could move ahead for a trial.

See full article at Business Insurance

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LinkedIn Surpasses Myspace

TECH CRUNCH - July 10 - LinkedIn surpassed Myspace in terms of traffic to become the No. 2 most visited social network in the U.S. in June. LinkedIn had 33.9M unique visitors in June compared to Myspace, which saw 33.5M unique visitors (that’s down from 34.9M in May). In June, Facebook saw 160.8M unique vistors in the U.S., which is up from 157.2M uniques in May.

by Leena Rao
See full article at Tech Crunch

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Justin Timberlake Considers Turning MySpace into a Talent Show

MASHABLE - July 5 - MySpace’s new owners, Specific Media, and Justin Timberlake, who has an ownership stake in the company, are considering plans for the site that include a possible talent show. MySpace may have been bleeding traffic in the last two years, but it’s still a very popular site for bands and musicians, and Specific Media obviously plans to capitalize on this. This might very well be the last chance to revitalize the site, which is currently a far cry from the multi-billion dollar social networking empire it was during the pre-Facebook era.

by Stan Schroeder
See full article at Mashable

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MySpace Acquired, CEO Out

TECH CRUNCH - June 30 - MySpace CEO Mike Jones just sent out this mass internal email and press release confirming the company’s sale to Specific Media earlier this morning. Kara Swisher is reporting that the sale was for $35M. Mike Jones will be leaving the company and is currently on a two month transition plan. Specific Media is a digital media company driving viewership for content owners, engagement for brands and relevance for consumers.

by Alexia Tsotsis
See full article at Tech Crunch

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MySpace Sale Nearing End with Low $30M Price

ALL THINGS DIGITAL - June 28 - The MySpace sale is still chugging along. The price could go as high as $35M, but it's far cry from the $100M that News Corp. had been aiming for. The two names--Specific Media and Golden Gate Capital--that are now in the forefront for an acquisition deal that News Corp. hopes to complete by Thursday, its fiscal year-end, have not been among the acquirers mentioned previously in the myriad of reports about the deal.

by Kara Swisher
See full article at CNET News

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MySpace Expected to Lay Off 150 Employees

TECH CRUNCH - June 28 - MySpace expects to lay off ~150 of its 400 employees tomorrow (37.5% of its staff). Another group of 150 employees will be put on a transition plan, where they will still be laid off but can work with pay for a few weeks while they search for another job.

by Alexia Tsotsis
See full article at Tech Crunch

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News Corp. Moving Towards Strategic Partnership for MySpace

RTT NEWS - June 6 - News Corp. has considered different options, including a sale, but the bids have come below its $100M expectation. The company began accepting offers for MySpace, part of its digital media unit, in April and several firms are said to be interested. The bids are likely to be filtered to one or two in the next two weeks, with a deal expected by month-end.

See full article at RTT News

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MySpace Australia Office To Close Doors

THE MUSIC NETWORK - May 16 - The MySpace Australia office will be shuttered by the end of this month according to a company spokesperson. The closure comes after the U.S.-based MySpace Inc announced it's Sydney-based affiliate would outsource advertising sales and content management, downsizing its workforce. As early as Friday, all remaining staff will have been let go. News Corp purchased MySpace in 2005 for $580 million and is now looking to sell for $100 million.

by Lars Brandle
See full article at The Music Network

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MySpace Continues To Rapidly Decline

TECH CRUNCH - May 11 - Despite a stabilization in unique visitors over the last two months, MySpace continues to see usage statistics plummet. The social networking site's uniques leveled off at about 62 million worldwide and 37 million U.S. visitors, according to ComScore. In one month, worldwide, average daily visitors dropped 13%, total time on site dropped 23%, total page views dropped 23% to 3 billion. U.S. number fare worse. Daily visitors dropped 28%, total time on site dropped 48% and page views dropped 50% from February to April 2011.

by Michael Arrington
See full article at Tech Crunch

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News Corp Seeks MySpace Bids Over $100 Million

REUTERS – Apr 27 - News Corp. is expected to receive bids for MySpace by the end of this week. Around five or more bids to buy all or part of the one-time social networking pioneer are expected, valuing the company at more than $100M. Among the names expected to bid are private equity firm THL Partners, Redscout Ventures and Criterion Capital, which owns social networking site Bebo. Other names, including Chinese Internet holding company Tencent and MySpace co-founder Chris De Wolfe, have also had a look at the company's books to see if its worth a bid.

by Yinka Adegoke
See full article at Reuters

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Zynga Pulls MySpace Mafia Wars

TRAIN2GAME - Apr 19 - Social gaming titan Zynga has pulled its popular Mafia Wars game from troubled MySpace. Instead it points players towards the game’s official site, mafiawars.com, where the game continues, with the developer promising an improved experience with new locations. Zynga last month discontinued another MySpace game, RPG Street Racing. However it also cancelled the game on Facebook, where Zynga is the runaway market leader, with 266M monthly active users across all its games, 200M ahead of its nearest competitor. Several other major social studios have also pulled games from MySpace in recent weeks. Playdom shut down text-based RPGs Overdrive and Bloodlines, and RockYou abandoned the site entirely, pulling Truth Box, RockYou Pets, Superhug! and Speed Racing from the service.

See full article at Train2Game

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Why Vevo Acquiring MySpace Could Be A Very Good Move

MASHABLE - Mar 30 - News Corp. is in preliminary talks to hand over MySpace’s reins to music video upstart Vevo in exchange for a stake in a new venture. Despite a redesign and a slew of new entertainment initiatives, MySpace is still suffering: Its worldwide traffic fell 29% to 62.6M visitors in February from 88M in October 2010. Musicians seem to be the site’s most loyal members. Which is why a Vevo/MySpace merger would be so effective. Vevo has the labels and music. Launched in 2009, it already rivals MTV as an online music video destination. Together, Vevo and MySpace could turn the former “Place For Friends” into the ultimate “Place for Music.”

by Brenna Ehrlich
See full article at Mashable

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