Tag archive: Owen Van Natta

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

Owen Van Natta has stepped down as CEO of social networking site MySpace, effective immediately. The announcement comes less than a year after Van Natta took over as MySpace's top executive; he will be replaced as CEO by two executives acting as co-Presidents, former COO Mike Jones and Chief Product Officer Jason Hirschhorn. Van Natta, Jones, and Hirschhorn all joined MySpace in April of 2009. No specific reasons were given for Van… Read More

Social networking giant MySpace has announced its latest belt-tightening moves in an effort to make the company more nimble and improve its bottom line: MySpace will be reducing its international staff by about two thirds—from 450 people to just 150—and plans to close at least four of its offices outside the United States. According to the company, about half of MySpace's user base comes from outside the United States.… Read More

It’s no secret that MySpace has been losing the social networking site against Facebook. In an attempt to slash costs and regain some momentum, yesterday it axed 420 jobs, or one-third of its workforce. Last week the speculation was that the cuts would be around the world, but instead, at least so far, they’re in the US. MySpace is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.. In a statement, chief executive Owen Van Natta said:… Read More

Social networking giant MySpace has tapped former FaceBook COO and chief revenue officer Owen Van Natta to take over the CEO position from founder Chris DeWolfe, whose departure was announced just last week. Van Natta spent three years as FaceBook's COO and then chief revenue officer, where he helped broker Microsoft's $240 million investment in Facebook; before that, he worked as a deal-maker at Amazon.com. Van Natta left… Read More

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"… Read More