MySpace employees are bracing for a massive bloodletting on the verge of a possible sale. The troubled social networking site is expected to see its 1,100-strong workforce shrink to half its current size by the middle of the month.
All These Digital and the L.A. Times reports the layoffs will come several weeks after MySpace redesigned itself as an “entertainment hub.”
What future do you think lies in wait for MySpace, and what function does the site serve in your social networking life?
MySpace Mulls Significant Layoffs, With Potential Sale Looming [All Things Digital via Los Angeles Times]
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A lot of bands still use it because of its audio capabilities. Perhaps it will focus more on that in the future?
Otherwise, the URL is worth something, so…dating site? porn? both?
All Facebook has to do is add a similar function and kill off MySpace for good.
Facebook has had functionality for bands, but they keep removing those features. You can’t really make facebook the home for your band, it doesn’t function well as they have removed music players, tabs, and other integration that was once there.
I can’t be the only person who has never had a MySpace account. I never liked it, never saw the point in it, and I’m pretty sure the fact that it’s now an “entertainment hub” is contributing to its demise. I feel sorry for the 50% who will be let go.
It became an entertainment hub because it lost so many users (blame Facebook). It tried to focus more on bands to save itself. However, it seems it isn’t working.
Never had one.
I saw the point in it, but saw it as being unprofessional for what I would have used it for.
I don’t know if I ever created one. I remember being pestered about creating an account to either that or facebook (which I know I created since the missus maintains my account for me), maybe both. Tough to remember what I had for dinner two weeks ago – and I care more about my food than I do about myspace.
I’m not a prostitute or a musician, so I never had one either. It chose to remain focused on a niche market instead of expanding and responding to the needs of the much larger user base which is THE REST OF THE WORLD. So maybe this is what they wanted to be. They didn’t want to become a massive social networking pretense and would rather stay loyal to the hookers and rock stars that made them what they are. Good for them. All Facebook has to do is create something similar to their audio tools and it will be the final nail in their coffin. I already can pick up plenty of hookers on Facebook, so it is only the musicians who are missing.
+2
Hookers? No wonder I keep getting such odd messages.
Are we surprised? Honestly? I haven’t looked at my MySpace page in almost 3 years.
Same here. I should probably check mine to make sure it hasn’t been hacked or something.
You may as well close the account if you’re not actually using it. I had gone through a period of several months where I never actually checked it, so finally I just got out.
Next target… FACEBOOK!!!
I can’t help but wonder why Marky Mark didn’t sell FB with that 1B offer from google or whatever it was. Myspace tanked after it was HUGE for awhile, and FB may head that way at some point too(especially with all these random “games” that spam up your news feeds and ask for money).
Maybe because he knew Facebook had more potential than MySpace, which was proven correct after Goldman made a $1.5 billion investment earlier this week that put the company’s value at $50 billion.
Facebook has the advantage of not being visually offensive. By giving people the ability to set web design back 15 years, they also give their users the ability to make potential new users say “fuck this shit.”
err…myspace is the one setting web design back 15 years
Well, this certainly won’t help morale.
There was a place for facebook before it left the uneducated unwashed masses in.
There was a fantastic period of time where you needed a college e-mail address to register on facebook and you were affiliated to your University. Then they let in everyone else and you had to deal with the dredges of society.
Myspace at a time was a great filter to keep those people away. Oh well – can’t turn back time.
Yes, you’re cool. You were on Facebook back when it required a college E-mail address.
actually, it was still stupid… just a lot smaller.
You’d think somebody who’d been to college could spell “dregs”.
Maybe he really meant dredges,
“Any of various machines equipped with scooping or suction devices and used to deepen harbors and waterways and in underwater mining”
But, probably not.
“uneducated unwashed masses”
TheM.asses were already there, and they were you.
You were sounding all snooty and highfalutin’ until I got to “dredges of society”.
Then I got a good laugh at you. Not ‘with’ you, hipster, ‘at’ you.
I’m sure you want us “uneducated, unwashed…dredges of society” when your car breaks down, your power goes out or your pipes spring a leak, we’re just not good enough to be part of your elitist online social network, right?
Ever consider some of us may have chosen a professional trade rather than college because we didn’t have daddy’s money to pay our way through and didn’t want to start life out with tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt? BTW my husband was a heavy truck and equipment tech before he became disabled and I am an ASE Certified auto tech, and even though he became disabled at 26, we own our house and two cars free and clear and have a 401(k) and Roth IRA on target to retire early and live comfortably into our 100′s if we’re that lucky, all before I turned 30 with no assistance or inheritance from anyone in either of our families. So go ahead and look down your nose at us as much as you want for our chosen careers, at least we won’t spend the majority of our lives enslaved to the corporate lending machine.
In other news, Facebook has recently been inundated with new account requests for login names such as thug4l1f3420, Curiusgrl13, etc…
Listen mate, don’t take this too personally but if you want to complain about the uneducated and unwashed “dredges” of society, it would behoove you learn how the word is spelled so as to avoid rather publicly appearing to join their ranks.
Sincerely
You concerned (and in my case largely uneducated, frequently unwashed) friends in the grammer/spelling police.
(grammar)
Yes, my post was full of indignant fail. And it didn’t properly attach to the original comment (by FireJayPa) that it was meant to. I give up.
You are off the hook with me, as you used one of my favorite words, “behoove.”
The what police? Or if you are being ironic, shouldn’t you misspell “spelling,†as well? Thanks.
(Your)
No, you’re, as in you are concerned with…
Not in this case… the incorrect sentence is “You concerned friends…” . It should be “Your concerned friends…”, not “You’re (meaning you are) concerned friends…”.
Ya know,
I can’t help but think,
That somehow,
This is all Obama’s fault.
No, it’s the house of reps. They ended up getting hacked by people who couldn’t handle the aspect of seeing jerky curtains that hang lower than their knees and sacks that would make a pendulum clock feel envious.
It will be a has been just like Friendster, Orkut, BlackPlanet…
MySpace still exists? I did not know that.
See what happens when you emerge from the cave?
But what will happen to Classmates?!
oh, wait….
That has been bothering me since I saw The Onion story about Classmates employees not having the heart to tell the CEO about Facebook. But I did some Googling, and it seems that they thrive on paid subscribers who are not that good with the inter-net…Too sad.
You have a lot of lonely people willing to pay to try to re-stalk the girl they had a crush on Sophomore year.
I have a myspace account still, but mainly for my DJ stuff that I do. Otherwise it’s not used at all.
What is this “Mice Space” of which you speak?
Mice Pace?
When I first saw this headline, my first thought was about those who were going to ask, “there’s still MySpace?” and I was right.
Get a clue, people.
I know, right? It’s where the lower half lives. Hey, they have to live somewhere.
I’m more surprised to hear that MySpace had more than 1000 employees to begin with.
oh if only Newscorp could fail.
Oh, it fails all the goddamn time. Its just that they need to be BANKRUPTED.
I was hoping for more of a discussion of lost opportunities with music-related promotion and revenue along with the general decline of quality site user interfaces over the last several years, but after reading most of these comments I won’t waste the energy.
My 17 year old sister in law put it best.. “Its the ghetto of social networking” I can’t agree more its like the bad neighborhood that you lock you car doors as you drive through it.
I never had an account there (for numerous reasons) though I am a dedicated Facebooker. I do agree that it still serves a good purpose for musicians and other artists (it’s much higher-profile than most of the niche sites), and I hope they continue to focus on that.
Always sad to hear when so many may soon be out of jobs.
When reached for comment, the remaining members of MySpace asked, “wat r u doin 2 nite?”
When reached for comment, the remaining member of MySpace asked, “wat r u doin 2 nite?”
fixed it for ya.
Who’s space?
First they came for friendster. . .
My brief experience with MySpace could be likened to moving into a trailer park with noisy neighbors, door to door salesmen, unusual acts of animal cruelty happening outside my window (shoot the monkey or slap the sumo wrestler’s tummy), lot lizards plying their trade on my back door step, and “friends” who insisted on beautifying their trailer with a bedazzler and glitter and the color pink.
If it hadn’t been for two friends who used it I would never have tried it. And thank goodness for Firefox’s adblock add-on. I would have fled in a month if I didn’t have that actively churning away the worst MySpace offered. Saved myself a ton of trojans & malware to boot.
social networking life
There be the problem. “social life” is combined with “networking”.
Business and personal life should never mix.
Facebook has repeatedly demonstrated that they have contempt for the whole concept of user privacy. I wish that *they* were the social network on the decline.
There was a time I liked MySpace, years ago. Now when I login there I don’t remember why. Their site is a snarled maze of annoying unblockable flash ads and cryptic error messages. Features are constantly breaking, disappearing, reappearing, and disappearing again without any notice or reason. That and the fact that nobody in my friend list has logged in besides me in the last 6 months.
To make matters worse, they continue to tweak everything so you have to keep relearning the interface and rebuilding your page to adjust to changes, nobody can decide what they are trying to do, assuming anybody is actually in charge there.
It was fun when the site was usable and I could catch up with my old friends, but I don’t think anybody will miss once it finally dies for good.
The new layout is incredibly unpleasant. But I guess you and I are the only ones who know that.
I miss MySpace.
I spent lots of time personalizing my profile and trying to make myself seem cool. I enjoyed getting random friend requests from creepy guys and crappy bands…and also some pretty cool random people that I still talk to years later. Facebook always seemed so proper. Now, though, with all their privacy issues, THEY are the bad guys and sketchy old MySpace is the trustworthy one.
I still log in sometimes for the hell of it. Maybe just because I feel bad for it?
Anyone else?
myspace.com/arichi
Myspace? What’s that? Is it like a LiveJournal? I think I remember hearing someone talk about that on mIRC the other day…
I gave up on myspace since their stupid redesign.
I think I speak for most everyone when I say:
Myspace still has employees?!?
Myspace needs at least 1,100 workers? Sweet Baby Jane!
I hate facebook.. but myspace is just constant spam and flash ads, and they continually ruin the interface. I wish there was a better alternative.
I’m honestly not the least bit surprised. Who even uses MySpace anymore??? MySpace has been slowly dying for at least a couple of years now. I know that I haven’t logged into my account in well over 2 years now. Ever since Facebook opened up to the public a few years ago, people quickly started ditching MySpace and switched over to Facebook. That’s what I did. I’ll admit that I did use MySpace all the time back in 2006, 2007, and maybe even the very beginning of 2008, but then I pretty much stopped using it altogether once I got going on Facebook. MySpace is basically like a ghost town now with all of the old, abandoned profiles that haven’t been logged into or updated for a year or two or more. Frankly, I’m surprised that MySpace is even still around today. I don’t know anyone who uses it anymore!