MySpace to Focus More on Music, Gaming and Entertainment
MySpace hasn't been getting as much press lately as its rivals, Twitter and Facebook, but the service is still thriving. The social networking website still gets 100 million users each month and its traffic recently started growing again. Bloombergreports that MySpace is gearing up to focus on becoming a music, gaming and entertainment destination.
"We will really become relevant, and there's just no way when you have 100 million-plus users a month like we do that you don't have something that's really relevant," Chief Executive Officer Owen Van Natta said in an interview at a music conference in Cannes this past weekend. "Along the path we are going down, we should see increased gains."
Van Natta, the former chief operating officer of Facebook, took over the News Corp.-owned site in April and has since replaced most of the management team, cleared content such as jobs listings, horoscopes and weather updates and made music and entertainment top priority. MySpace posted 7 percent growth in unique visitors from November to December, the first increase since mid-last year, Van Natta said, citing statistics by researcher ComScore Inc.
MySpace's music site grew 92% in 2009 but they face a suprise challenge from upstart Vevo. In video, MySpace is also trying some original content including shows called Famous Hangers and Artist on Artist.
