MySpace Shifts Staff to Refocus on User Experience

In his biography of Rupert Murdoch, “the Man Who Owns the News,” Michael Wolff spoke indirectly of News Corp.'s (NWS) culture, saying, “every second working for [Rupert] Murdoch is a second spent thinking about what Murdoch wants.” Outside the realm of News Corp.'s more core news-driven media properties, MySpace seemed to escape some of that oversight these past few years. The company was coasting on a straightening trajectory as an almost unaffiliated entity.

With new handpicked leadership in place, that’s changing. Looking to refocus on the customer experience and regain a nimble edge without excess financial weight, MySpace said it will lay off about 30% of its staff.

“Simply put, our staffing levels were bloated and hindered our ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company,” new MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta said in a statement.

MySpace’s advertising relationship with Google (GOOG) is set to expire in 2010. In anticipation of that, and to regain ground lost to rival Facebook, MySpace will look to build up user engagement – giving the site’s audience better reasons to stay active and involved.

With the cuts, MySpace will still have about 1,000 employees to do the job.

Comments

[DONE_SONZ:]

They need to hire more people to knock out all the spam on their site.

Jun 17 02:12 PM