MySpace is scrambling to right the sinking ship, starting with laying off nearly half of its workforce
MySpace, one of the first popularized social networking sites, has hit the front page of media outlets again. This time, it’s not for reasons that are positive. The company is laying off 500 of it’s workers in what it’s calling a broad restructuring. This accounts for about 47% of its workforce worldwide.
Just three years ago, MySpace was king of the social media hill. All other social media sites looked to it as a model for success and parent company, News Corp., issued lofty expectations that the site would soon be generating $1 billion in revenue.
In a race for user’s eyeballs, MySpace was locked in a fierce competition with Facebook. One that Facebook ultimately reigned supreme in through its improved user interface, tighter security controls and integration with other media outlets such as YouTube. User’s ultimately voted for Facebook with mouse clicks, taking with them precious advertising dollars.
MySpace now trails Facebook in both total number of users and time spent by those users on the site. Facebook has three times the number of users in the United States alone that MySpace has. Those users spend an average of just 21 minutes interacting with the MySpace property compared to 80 minutes that Facebook enjoys from its users.
Some indicate that News Corp. is shopping MySpace, looking for a buyer. One source named Yahoo Inc. as a possible interested party. No concrete news is available yet.
