Chicago (IL) -News Corporation has confirmed that MySpace co-founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe will be “stepping down” in the near future.
However, DeWolfe will continue to advise the company and serve on the board of MySpace China. Current MySpace president Tom Anderson may also assume a “new role” in the organization.
“Chris and Tom are true pioneers and we greatly value the tremendous job they’ve done in growing MySpace into what it is today,” said News Corporation’s Chief Digital Officer Jonathan Miller. “Thanks largely to their vision, MySpace has become a vibrant creative community with 130 million passionate followers worldwide. It is an enormously successful property and we look forward to building on its achievements with a new management structure we’ll announce in the near future.”
The new management team will almost certainly be expected to increase traffic to the once ubiquitous website. Clearly, the glory days of MySpace have long since waned. According to Nielsen Online, Facebook has become the “largest player on the global stage, dominant in many countries, [replacing] MySpace as the world’s most popular social network.”
Nevertheless, MySpace still managed to generate $1 billion in advertising revenue during 2008, compared to Facebook’s $300 million.
“Whilst part of Facebook’s huge appeal is the simple layout of an interface that carries very little ad inventory, MySpace’s offering possibly makes its inventory – of which there is a lot more compared to Facebook – easier to monetize, particularly in terms of immersive advertising,” explained Nielsen.
