Although my measures still indicate MySpace is the largest social networking site in the United States, it’s no secret that the service has been losing ground to FaceBook, which may still ag behind in the United States but has already surpassed MySpace worldwide in terms of its total usership, and is also experiencing faster growth. Now, MySpace’s parent company News Corp. has announced that "by mutual agreement" MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe will not be renewing his contract and will leave the CEO position "in the near future."
Tag Archive: Amit Kapur
COO and Two More Execs Un-Friend MySpace to Join Startup
Social networking sites are known for their drama—“OMG, I can’t believe she friended him!“—and MySpace’s executive suites don’t seem to be any exception, as company chief operations officer Amit Kapur, senior engineering VP Jim Benedetto, and senior product strategy VP Steve Pearman have all jumped ship in favor of positions at an undisclosed startup company. Rumors of the move have been circulating all week, but MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe confirmed it in a statement today.
MySpace Preps to Launch Developer Platform
Back in October, MySpace pledged to open its platform to developers, in part to encourage third parties to deploy widgets, games, and other social networking tools on the site, but also to help the 400-pound gorilla of the social networking world maintain its lead on rival Facebook, which has seen a tremendous surge in growth in the last year in part due to opening its platform to developers.
Coming Soon – MySpace Games
Social networks have become insidious, taking over bigger chunks of our lives. That’s likely to take a big leap early next year when MySpace introducescasual gaming. MySpace has teamed with Oberon Media to create a gaming channel on the social network site which will not only let players choosefrom “hundreds” of games, but also add and virally share games through their personal profiles pages. All the games will be free, and players will be able to challenge friends tomulti-player games, invite them to play the same single player game, or socialize via chat services within the game. “Bringing entertainment in the form of fun, social, casual games willenhance our user experience,” said Amit Kapur, VP of Business Development for MySpace, in a statement. “Our goal is to provide our members with an easy way to play with their friends andgive them with additional ways to interact.” The pairing is also going to encourage the developer community, with a Software Developer Kit designed specifically for multi-player andsocial gaming.



