Tag archive: MySpace

Yesterday when we were looking at how Myspace has hugely benefited from Facebook's Open Graph, we kept seeing pundits referring to it as a “Timeline app” and saying the site has the Timeline to thank for its user resurgence.  However if you take a look at Facebook's official list of apps for Timeline, you'll noticed it isn't anyway to be found. Still, Myspace shows up in the Ticker when you use its music… Read More

Myspace has long been the joke of the social media world. Last year the social networking site nearly self-imploded and was victim to massive layoffs, a less than impressive sale, and being written off as a News Corp mistake. Even little victories along the way haven’t been enough to offset the overwhelming failure of the site. Netting Justin Timberlake was gimmicky, and the first mention of Myspace TV sounded like a desperate attempt to grab… Read More

MySpace's fall from grace can be measured by two sets of figures: Dropping from 75 million unique visitors a month to fewer than 25 million, and being sold once for more than $500 million and then again for “just” $35 million, all in the space of a few years. New owners Tim and Chris Vanderhook, who took over in June last year, told the New York Times they weren't seeing any new signups at all, a statistic that was… Read More

The Facebook vs. Google war has been brewing for quite some time—its origins can likely be traced back to Facebook’s launch, when Google was put on notice that it needed to jump on social and soon. Things have only escalated since, with both companies chopping at the bit to control as much consumer data as possible and taking measures to keep the other from doing exactly that. So it’s no surprise that Facebook–and others–are fighting… Read More

Justin Timberlake wants to inject some life into ailing social network MySpace, but as anyone following the rise and fall of the former juggernaut knows, there are years of failures to address before MySpace can reclaim its glory. Heck, even News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch knows his company didn't do the best job of handling the social network after it purchased MySpace in 2005, and he recently said as much — in surprisingly blunt… Read More

Just when you thought MySpace had finally resigned to the same history books populated with sites like Friendster and Pets.com, the ailing social network is showing new signs of life. After taking part ownership in MySpace all the way back in June, entertainment mogul Justin Timberlake revealed his plan to reinvent MySpace as a social media network for watching TV with friends at Panasonic’s CES press conference. The pitch: With the… Read More

According to a recent survey of 5,000 divorce petitions conducted by U.K. blog Divorce-Online, approximately 33 percent of divorce petitions within the United Kingdom contained the word “Facebook” and indicated that the opposing party in the divorce utilized Facebook in a manner that was destructive to the relationship. This is a sharp increase from 2009 when only one in five petitions mentioned the social network as an issue. The… Read More

Announced in an official blog post, Google rolled out the 11th annual version of the Google Zeitgeist earlier today. The Zeitgeist shows off the search terms that grew the fastest during the year as well as the most popular terms in various countries around the world. In the Fastest Rising category, YouTube star Rebecca Black took the top spot this year in regards to Google searches, both globally and within the United States. Black beat out… Read More

Former Facebook COO and MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta is once again looking for a job: he's just resigned as the chief business officer of social game maker Zynga, the company that pushes popular online games like Words with Friends and Farmville. Van Natta will continue to serve on Zynga's board of directors, but his position as chief business officer ended on November 16. As a result, Van Natta will explicitly miss out on millions of… Read More

Are you sitting down? Ok, good — because you mind is about to be blown. According to a newly-released study from Pew Internet Research, two-thirds of all Americans who use social networks do so to stay in touch with current friends and/or family. And half say re-connecting with old friends is a “major reason” for using social networks. Shocking, isn't it? Connecting with family as a reason to use social networks — which, for… Read More

There's a new social network in town, and it bills itself as everything Facebook's not. Unthink.com, which opened up registration today for an initial round of beta users, says it is the “anti-Facebook,” and vows to give users complete control over their personal data. Unthink, which is based in Tampa, Florida, came out swinging, with a manifesto that vows to “emancipate social media,” along with a promotional video that literally… Read More

Apple and Dropbox have answered a call-to-action from public advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation to fight the U.S. government's efforts to collect citizens' private information. The two technology companies join Facebook, Google and Microsoft, all of which were named in the EFF's “Who Has Your Back” campaign, which seeks to gain support from the technology industry for the Digital Due Process coalition.… Read More

According to StatCounter, StumbleUpon has overtaken Facebook over the last two months and makes up over 50 percent of all social traffic in the United States as of August 2011. Two years ago, StumbleUpon was the main driver for social media traffic, but lost market share to Facebook  over the last 18 months. As of August, Facebook has fallen to about 38% of all U.S. traffic while sites like Twitter, Myspace, Digg, Reddit, YouTube and others are… Read More

During a conference call today concerning the News Corp. fiscal fourth quarter earnings report, it was reported that the news giant lost $254 million on the sale of MySpace to Specific Media on June 29. This loss pushed net income for the company down by 22 percent. Murdoch purchased MySpace in 2005 for $580 million, but watched the investment rapidly lose value as MySpace members defected to Facebook in massive numbers. Management at MySpace… Read More

Fresh off the arrest of a man that dared the New York police department to track him down on Facebook, the NYPD is launching a new unit with the primary goal of tracking criminals on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other social networks. In addition to tracking wanted criminals, the group will also use social networks to keep track of gang violence and out-of-control house parties. The leader of the unit, Kevin O'Connor, has previously… Read More