Remember when Myspace had over 100 million people and growing faster than the once big social networking company friendster, well rumor has it that they may be letting go of hundreds of employees in just a few weeks. Remember these are web 2.0 companies that come and go, myspace was the leader just a few years ago selling itself to news corp for around half a billion dollars, who knows how much its worth now, I mean if facebook is worth $50 billion cant we value myspace at around $5-10 Billion, I mean they still have over 80 million members and this is the new dot com bubble, so why not value myspace about 1/10th of facebook or around $5 billion greenbacks. * JANUARY 4, 2011 Myspace Prepares Downsizing, Layoffs By JESSICA E. VASCELLARO And RUSSELL ADAMS News Corp.'s Myspace is preparing to announce a dramatic downsizing of its business, according to people familiar with the matter. One person familiar with the matter said the site could lay off between a third and a half of its roughly 1,100 employees. Another person said the moves could be announced as soon as this month. The restructuring is the latest step in Myspace's intensifying turnaround effort. The social network reduced its staff by nearly 30% last summer, laying-off hundreds of employees. But the cuts weren't sufficient to contain costs, a person familiar with the matter said, who added the new cuts would be across the board. Another person familiar with the matter said that, depending on the results of the restructuring, News Corp. may look for buyers for Myspace but there are no current talks over a sale. A spokeswoman for the social network, which has headquarters in Beverly Hills, Calif., declined to comment. Myspace in October redesigned its site to emphasize its media assets and later struck a new ad deal with Google Inc. According to people familiar with the situation, that deal, under which Google will sell search and graphical ads on the site, generates far less revenue for the site than an earlier deal, under which it received upfront payments. As part of that overhaul, Myspace is refashioning the site as a hub for music, games and entertainment. It unveiled the new site in October. Technology website All Things Digital earlier reported that Myspace was considering layoffs. News Corp. owns All Things Digital and The Wall Street Journal. News Corp. acquired Myspace in 2005 for $580 million. Since then, it has struggled to remain relevant as Facebook's popularity has soared and it has undergone several rounds of management changes. Myspace had 54.4 million unique U.S. visitors in November, down 15% from a year ago, according to comScore. Ad spending on Myspace was expected to decline 37% last year to $347 million, according to research firm eMarketer. By contrast, Facebook had 151.7 million unique U.S. visitors in November, up almost 50% from a year ago, according to comScore. In the quarter ended Sept. 30, the News Corp. unit that includes Myspace reported an operating loss of $156 million, primarily due to the site's poor performance. News Corp. said search and advertising revenues at Myspace declined $70 million in the quarter compared to the same period a year earlier. On a conference call with analysts in November, News Corp. Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey said the Myspace losses "are not acceptable or sustainable. Our current management did not create these losses, but they know we have to address them." Mr. Carey said at an industry conference later that month that News Corp. was open to all options for Myspace pending the results of a relaunch of the site. He said those options could include a sale but that the media conglomerate was pleased with the overhaul of Myspace so far. Mr. Carey said at the industry conference that the relaunch was key to keeping open News Corp.'s options for the site. "I think those options would have been pretty limited and I think probably would have undervalued it against what we think it can be," he said. Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704199504576060103578782180.html#ixzz1A1Rr4tBK
I remember when Rupert Murdoch was crowing about how at $500million it was a steal and how great the deal was. Well he was half right, it was great for the sellers
facecrap is myspace without the stupid backgrounds and bad music. removing each of those was worth an added 20 billion mkt cap if et removes the actual postings here, it will be worth 100 million minimum
myspace is declining faster than the US dollar. it may have had 50 million unique visitors, but those people don't spend much time on there. that's what advertisers pay for. if you simply log on, then notice that none of your friends have posted anything, then log off, how much ad revenue does myspace generate from that?
What are the key differences between Facebook and Myspace? They were basically the same but Facecrap overtook them with their Google like advertising model and member tracking capabilities. Facebook I hear will be used sort of like a credit card and will track you everywhere. It's just insane how people gladly hand over their privacy to Facebook so they can make billions on their back. Is that the only reason for the 50 bil valuation ?