The “Place for Friends” is starting to feel lonely.
MySpace, the Rupert Murdoch-owned Web site once synonymous with social networking, is losing popularity and key staff in its biggest troubles since launching five years ago.
The latest figures show that Murdoch, who also owns newspapers around the world, is being beaten in the fight for social networks.
MySpace suffered a drop in visitor traffic last month and is now less than half the size of its younger rival, Facebook.
Three executives recently quit the one-time darling of the Internet and there is speculation its co-founders will follow.
MySpace’s loss of status as the cool place to be is an object lesson in the notoriously fickle Internet, where today’s cultural icon is tomorrow’s passing fad.
From humble origins in 2003, the site led the so-called “Web 2.0” revolution in which users could create their own profile pages and share content with friends.
Murdoch’s purchase of MySpace for US$580 million was seen as a masterstroke as membership continued to soar, with celebrities and politicians joining the craze.
But then came Facebook, founded by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, which soon snowballed with an older and apparently more affluent demographic to steal MySpace’s crown.
Gradually newspaper coverage of social networks switched from references to “MySpace and Facebook” to “Facebook and MySpace.”
The rise of Bebo also undermined MySpace’s dominance, while Twitter is among the latest novelties eating into users’ attention spans.
MySpace had 124 million monthly unique visitors last month, a decline of 2 percent, the marketing research company comScore said.
Facebook, by contrast, racked up 276 million unique visitors, an increase of 16.6 percent.
Michael Arrington, co-editor of the influential industry blog TechCrunch, posted: “What was a bad situation in November 2008 is starting to turn outright ugly — Facebook is now well over twice the size of MySpace ... It was less than a year ago that MySpace and Facebook were the same size.”
There are clues behind the scenes that all is not well at Murdoch’s Fox Interactive Media, which runs the site.
Amit Kapur, MySpace’s chief operating officer, resigned after little more than a year in the post to set up a new company.
He will be joined by Jim Benedetto and Steve Pearman, senior vice-presidents of engineering and product strategy.
The exodus comes amid speculation of further departures and rumors that MySpace’s cofounders, Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, could also walk away in October after the end of their contracts, each worth US$30 million over two years.
MySpace is clinging on to a marginal lead over Facebook in the US, but trails badly in Europe.
Nick Thomas, an analyst at Forrester Research, said: “In the last 12 months Facebook has extended its dominance in every territory in Europe.”
he said: “I’m not convinced that it’s terminal for MySpace. The battle isn’t over yet.”
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
‘OF COURSE A COUNTRY’: The president outlined that Taiwan has all the necessary features of a nation, including citizens, land, government and sovereignty President William Lai (賴清德) discussed the meaning of “nation” during a speech in New Taipei City last night, emphasizing that Taiwan is a country as he condemned China’s misinterpretation of UN Resolution 2758. The speech was the first in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to give across Taiwan. It is the responsibility of Taiwanese citizens to stand united to defend their national sovereignty, democracy, liberty, way of life and the future of the next generation, Lai said. This is the most important legacy the people of this era could pass on to future generations, he said. Lai went on to discuss
MISSION: The Indo-Pacific region is ‘the priority theater,’ where the task of deterrence extends across the entire region, including Taiwan, the US Pacific Fleet commander said The US Navy’s “mission of deterrence” in the Indo-Pacific theater applies to Taiwan, Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Stephen Koehler told the South China Sea Conference on Tuesday. The conference, organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), is an international platform for senior officials and experts from countries with security interests in the region. “The Pacific Fleet’s mission is to deter aggression across the Western Pacific, together with our allies and partners, and to prevail in combat if necessary, Koehler said in the event’s keynote speech. “That mission of deterrence applies regionwide — including the South China Sea and Taiwan,” he
UNPRECEDENTED: In addition to the approved recall motions, cases such as Ma Wen-chun’s in Nantou are still under review, while others lack enough signatures The Central Election Commission (CEC) announced yesterday that a recall vote would take place on July 26, after it approved the first batch of recall motions targeting 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安). Taiwan is in the midst of an unprecedented wave of mass recall campaigns, following a civil society push that echoed a call made by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) in January to initiate signature drives aimed at unseating KMT legislators. Under the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), Taiwanese can initiate a recall of district-elected lawmakers by collecting
RSS