Social Networking site MySpace has just announced that they are going to cut the number of their employees by almost 30 percent.
They say it’s an attempt to become more efficient by bringing the number of people working more in line with their biggest rival, Facebook. That is what it’s all about really.
MySpace was once the most popular social networking site but were overtaken by Facebook last year in 2008.
MySpace user numbers haven’t really grown much recently and are stagnating at around the 125 million mark whereas Facebook’s user base has doubled to 200 million in less than 12 months.
Interestingly, MySpace recently hired ex Facebook executive Owen Van Natta as the new Chief Executive of MySpace in an attempt to put MySpace back on track.
Even in the USA MySpace are starting to feel the competition. Up until recently MySpace has always been the preferred site in the USA as opposed to Facebook, but now the number of US users to each site is just about equal.
Commenting on the staff cuts Van Natta said in a statement “Simply put, our staffing levels were bloated and hindered our ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company”. Ok!
So how many pay offs are we talking about here?
Currently, Facebook has about 850 employees so MySpace have cut their number down to around 1000 which means that approximately 420 have had to go. That’s pretty drastic by anyone’s standards.
MySpace is owned by Fox Interactive Media who in turn is owned by News Corporation. Jonathan Miller, News Corp’s Chief Digital Officer reckons that MySpace had grown “too big considering the realities of today’s marketplace”.
Analyst with eMarketer Debra Aho Williamson says “Thirty percent is more than a haircut. It’s chopping the head off,” she also adds “It’s obviously a very aggressive move by Owen Van Natta and Jon Miller to send a message to the marketplace that they’re really taking the turnaround of MySpace seriously. It says, ‘Wow, we’re really going to try to change this culture.’”
That’s the whole point. Change is exactly what Van Natta had in mind when he took on the job. In fact one of the reasons he accepted the post was because he was going to be able to make substantial changes. No doubt we’ll be seeing more in the coming weeks and months.
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Wow. That’s crazy! Recently Myspace has been doing a lot of new stuff that Facebook has been doing for a long time! Facebook has had chat inside Firefox for a while now. Then all the sudden one day, I signed into my myspace account (that I NEVER use, and there was chat! Right there in Firefox! I used to use Pidgin to chat using Myspace IM. Commenting on people’s status… That’s something Facebook has done for a long time, that MySpace is just now letting people do. And another thing… On Facebook, you have been able to view people’s old statuses and now MySpace is doing that.
Now I will say this, although Myspace is copying Facebook, I think it’s a GOOD thing!
I like Facebook because I have ex-family that spy’s on me and won’t leave me alone. On Facebook they can’t see my status, but on myspace they can. (I know Myspace 2.0 lets you make your status updates Private. But that’s something new and I haven’t messed with myspace in a while!)
I know its a real slash on the work force , its a sign that they need to tighten things up and move with the pace of the ever shifting web.