Newsweek has confirmed our story that MySpace cofounder Tom Anderson, who automatically becomes everyone’s first friend when they register for the site, has lied about his age. Newsweek based their confirmation on “professional license information, voter registration and utility and telephone service applications” (our story was based on a statement by a MySpace executive).
When MySpace was founded in 2003, Anderson claimed to be 27 years old. At the time he was actually 32. Today he claims to be 32, when in reality he celebrates his 37th birthday next week, on November 8. Anderson’s Wikipedia page has been updated to note the controversy. His MySpace page, for now, continues to perpetuate the fiction.
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I don’t think anything about News Corp or MySpace is honest. Seems fitting. Maybe they had to adjust some numbers to make things more “balanced.”
Alright…here comes the perezhilton like news from techcrunch..
my thoughts on this post is “so what?”…. this seems to be more of juicy gossip that one worthy of Techcrunch. #2 is right — this seems better for perezhilton.
I read the first story you did on this… I still have the same question - what’s your point? Is it that everything on MySpace is or can be a lie? Or is there some SEC violation, or that this guy is untrustworthy?
Jason Alba
CEO - JibberJobber.com
Author - ImOnLinkedInNowWhat.com
Yeah Yeah! Thanks Foo!
I am not sure why this story is so popular. Seems like most myspace profiles have false ages. Mine does
Jason - well, first its more than just a simple lie. It’s a lie that is perpetuated and amplified by the fact that Tom is everyone’s first friend, from 13 year old girls on up. And there is significant irony: if you can’t believe what you see in the founder’s profile, then you really can’t believe anything you see on the site. I think most people understand how easy it is to make things up on the Internet, but perhaps this story will make people understand just how prevalent that practice is.
This is Murdoch, remember, not some tiny Silicon Valley startup - they’re a media company, and as such most of what they do will be under a heavy PR smokescreen. They’re not your friends, were apparently pretty much a spyware company before they founded the website, and I’m certain there must be juicier stories on them than this. D’you suppose they look at protected profiles, Facebook-style?
*Sniff* Tom - you lied to me… How dare you… I feel so …. so… violated!!!
Who the hell cares?
Yes, you must be truthful to your users and to the public!
As the Tom of my social network I am truly 32!
Who gives a damn about his age beside Newsweek and TC.
http://www.givemebeats.com
This is Valleywag material - I normally uphold Techcrunch to a much higher standard than Valleywag! Please bring back solid journalism in the Technology Industry.
Mike, I don’t think this story does anything to “make people understand just how prevalent that practice is.” Tom Anderson’s body of work overshadows this so much it’s silly.
Now, this is getting more exciting. Anyway, for as long as he didn’t promise all those girls, women and grandmas marriage, that would be fine. Who knows in reality, he’s really a septuagenarian.
Isn’t it amazing that a 30-something year old would think he was too old?
We have to shake this fear where those of us in our 30s feel like we’re not in the target demo and therefore can’t design products for the masses.
We all know plenty of 30-somethings that live and buy and socialize like 20-somethings…with deeper pockets…and quite a few of them have rocking minds for designing products.
I thought TC learns from mistakes, and thought comments on the origirnal artcile showed people really donot care about his ageand thought that was the end of the discussion on this issue on TC.
Apparently that is not the case with TC.
Perhaps somebody should start investigating what all discrepancies/inconsistencies Mike has in his life and/or in his company.
Lame….not that somebody didn’t post their proper age, but that this is considered worthy of TechCrunch’s notice (or NewsWeek’s). Whether it’s to seem a bit more hip to the younger audience or a touch of vanity, it makes no difference.
Do we really need such a trivial example to be used to point out that some folks might be creating personae slightly or radically different from reality?
Is this a beef with MySpace or with the whole concept of the social internet? Yep, people fabricate their identities on-line. What an amazing scoop.
Alec
RE: Ben post#1
Founder Anderson’s age shenanigan has been going on since MySpace was founded in 2003. Newscorp bought them in 2005. Thought you could use some facts to help ‘balance’ things out.
And when he gets over 45, he will be wanting to remove 5 years or more from his age….[lol]
Velioncho, reader comments, links and emails certainly impact what we write about. But I still tend to write what I feel is interesting as opposed to taking the path of least resistance. If I stopped doing that this job wouldn’t be much fun anymore. The exit door is a click away - stay if you like, leave if you don’t.
This plays nicely into the Valley’s well-known age discrimination issues.
Who cares? Everybody lies about their age on Myspace.
this Tom character is just that, a character. If someone actually does feel like they’ve been lied to, they probably also believe that ‘Tom’ was sitting idle on myspace when he decided to add them as a friend. It doesn’t surprise me that his age was false nor would it surprise me if anything else about him was false.
-Scott, 25, M, 32″ waist, dating a super model and has lots of $$
Hey Mike,
I found this post interesting and relevant…don’t listen to the haters.
Allen - TRUE AGE: 24
Cofounder - Famesource.com
http://www.famesource.com
Big hairy deal! I heard Arrington was really 49.
#21
way to go mike!
news flash all u complainers: this is arrington’s site! he can talk about whatever he wants. plus, anyone ever heard of skimming headlines? you don’t actually have to read every post!
What I would like to know is just how many people at MySpace/Fox, know about this and thought it was a funny joke or actually believed that it’s real. I am surprised that so many think that this isn’t a big deal. I mean, it’s a guys age, who cares right? Well, why lie about it? Is he that vain or could this be one in a series of lies? This isn’t some nothing employee, it’s a founder of a company and they are held to a higher degree of scrutiny. If he’s comfortable lying about something as insignificant as his age, I wonder what else he’s hiding.
ditto 25 and 27.
What a dumb as*! Won’t be surprised at all if someone sues him for it.
Perhaps for false advertising. lol
“stay if you like, leave if you dont”.
Nope, that is the old way. correction.
“stay if you like, comment if you dont”.
In all fairness, most of the coverage of TC is good and relevant but then you get annoyed by these silly news.
Perhaps having a seperate “juicy” section (CrucheJuice/CrunchGossip/CrunchSillytalk whatever) would enthruz your appetite for silly stories at the same time serious readers do not loose focus.
I’d agree that this isn’t earth-shattering news, but it *is* interesting (at least to me). It raises the question of why this dude felt the need to lie about his age. Is there some sort of real or perceived age bias out west? If so, then I’ll make a point not to move there! I’m 39, I live in the midwest USA, and no-one seems to care about age here. You can either get the job done or you can’t. To be honest, my age means that I’ve been able to acquire more experience and develop more skills than most people younger than me. Why would I want to hide that?
@Marcello-Yes there is a lot of age discrimination in IT.
27 seems to young for a CEO, so he upped it to 32 to look more experienced.
Now 39 is in the sweet spot. Not too old, not too young. But just wait until you hit 45. It’s all downhill then and gets worse with each passing year if you are job hunting.
“if you can’t believe what you see in the founder’s profile, then you really can’t believe anything you see on the site.”
that’s stupid…
and also, he said we was 27 when he was actually 32 not vice versa, so johns’ already flawed logic doesn’t even apply “27 seems to young for a CEO, so he upped it to 32 to look more experienced.”
32 is too old to be joining social networking sites, if you ask me.
Micheal Arrington is 37 years old. I can’t wait for two years.
Fun is almost over. Hooray!!!
I was the first person to confirm this with his old boss Brad Greenspan when the story broke. I sent the confirmation to Erick, and editor on this website. I am giving myself credit right now.
That should read “an editor on this website”.
TC,
***Instead of constantly exposing your crush on Zuck through 30% of TechCrunch’s posts, why don’t you spinoff another blog that is dedicated to talking about your undying love of anything facebook and your absolute disdain of myspace.
This is old news.
bit valleywagish.
Micheal Arrington lied about his name too. His real name is Jack M. Arrington.
Actually, he never claimed he was 27 when MySpace started. He started at 29 and stayed there for several years.
It’s just a persona. It’s “Tom” from f’ng Myspace. The age discrepancy does not implicate dishonesty on the rest of the site any more than it does on other social networking sites - or any site for that matter.
I’m sure you could find discrepancies on many things Zuckerberg has said - there’s controversy over who founded Facebook, for example.
Snooooooooze.
I think that if they really want us to jump to the conclusion that it is easy to lie on the internet or that nothing on the internet is what it seems, then SAY IT! The average American is not smart enough or cares enough to make inferences on their own.
But I wonder if Tom was intended to be semi-fictional from the beginning.
Is perezhilton going to be reporting tech news now?
Why do all gay men in their 30s always lie about their age?
I’ll would never do that
josef alexander
17/m/new york, ny
Just like a woman!
oops was I being Chauvanistic?
sorry Ang.
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
And this is important because..?