Myspace is Still Dying, Preps For Layoffs

By Joe Coscarelli Tue., Jan. 4 2011 at 3:29 PM

Back in the day...

Myspace, the News Corp.-owned social network of yesterday, will layoff between a third and half of its approximately 1,100 employees, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, again reigniting chatter about the company's epic failure since a 2005 acquisition for $580 million. This after a 30% staff reduction last summer. For years the website has been hemorrhaging both users and money, and Rupert Murdoch's media giant would be happy to sell, if only someone would buy.

More woes from the Journal:

News Corp. acquired Myspace in 2005 for $580 million. Since then, it has struggled to remain relevant as Facebook's popularity has soared and it has undergone several rounds of management changes. Myspace had 54.4 million unique U.S. visitors in November, down 15% from a year ago, according to comScore. Ad spending on Myspace was expected to decline 37% last year to $347 million, according to research firm eMarketer.

By contrast, Facebook had 151.7 million unique U.S. visitors in November, up almost 50% from a year ago, according to comScore.

In the quarter ended Sept. 30, the News Corp. unit that includes Myspace reported an operating loss of $156 million, primarily due to the site's poor performance. News Corp. said search and advertising revenues at Myspace declined $70 million in the quarter compared to the same period a year earlier.

Elsewhere, Reuters repeats the line about Myspace being for sale -- CNBC reports that News Corp is "on course to sell" by mid-2011 -- but clarifies, "there are no talks currently with potential buyers." And we thought that logo was bad.

Myspace Plans Layoffs [WSJ]

We Recommend

linda

Myspace was my life i had so many friends my hole family loved myspace it was our passion until they changed the layouts so hard to figure out the backgrounds were ugly .the website was slow almost unusable bring the old layouts back they were so much fun to decorate you will get your customers back

Reddaytonadog

It's hard to convine people to stay, but even harder to convince people to join Facebook.

I spent the last three and a half years on MySpace and put my life into it, but now it's just wasting away. I'm out of patience, MySpace losing popularity with Facebook gaining it is driving me mad!!!

Myemail

Have some sympathy for the employees being laid off. The horrible cut throat management will probably get theirs this time. However, there are still some smart hard working people there that will walk away with a severance check, but lose their jobs and benefits in a tough market. Not as tough as the last layoff, but tough.

Once this is over News Corp should look into its HR and Payroll practices. They make so many "Huge" mistakes. Right now everyone in that company knows that a layoff is pending and today was payday. The rumor is if your vacation pay is (0) you are getting laid off (because you will get your vac in a separate check on layoff day) and If the vac balance is accurate you still have a job. How could this get out? Everyone has been packing their boxes without a word from HR yet. So sad..

Take those employees out of their misery and hope that they don't sue News Corp for horrible HR practices. Every time MySpace has to cut staff there has been a huge payroll error or Management said something stupid, referring to the employees that were let go as lazy bums - they needed to trim the fat. Whatever. since then that person was trimmed so he must have been fat as well. KARMA

I have friends there and I wish them the best of luck but, poor management put MySpace in this position, not the employees that worked so hard and tried to hang in there. I am sorry guys. Keep your head up! There is life after MySpace. I am proof of that..