Less than a week ago MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe still felt secure in his job. Fast forward to today and DeWolfe is out and a new CEO, Owen Van Natta, is starting his first day on the job.
And he’s already got two lieutenants, either of which could easily be the CEO: former AOL exec Mike Jones as COO (he has /mike at MySpace and was one of the first 3,000 members) and Jason Hirschhorn is the new Chief Product Officer. MySpace cofounder and President Tom Anderson, who’s currently leading the product team, is having “discussions” about “assuming a new role in the organization.” Hirschhorn was formerly the Chief Digital Officer at MTV Networks and was most recently the head of Sling Media Entertainment Group. Van Natta, Jones and Hirschhorn are pictured left to right above.
As we said last week, this was more than a simple CEO change. The entire senior executive team has been restructured with outsiders hand picked by News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. Digital Media chief Jon Miller. From what we hear they’re done hiring for now. But as Van Natta, Jones and Hirschhorn settle in, expect many more changes down the road.
Those execs that are still left at MySpace are meeting the new team for the first time today (I’d pay good money to listen in on that). Later in the afternoon they’ll lead an all-hands meeting.
The full press release is below.
News Corporation Expands MySpace Management Team
Michael Jones named Chief Operating Officer
Jason Hirschhorn named Chief Product Officer
______________________
Los Angeles, CA, April 27, 2009 – News Corporation today announced an expansion of MySpace’s management team with two key new hires. Michael Jones has been named Chief Operating Officer and Jason Hirschhorn has been named Chief Product Officer, effective immediately. Mr. Jones and Mr. Hirschhorn will be based in Los Angeles and report to MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta.
Jones has founded and operated several online businesses, including Userplane, a leading provider of tools for online communities such as MySpace. Userplane was acquired in 2006 by AOL, where Jones subsequently served as a Senior Vice President and focused on social media monetization and also pioneered the distribution of widgets and other technology to Web publishers. Most recently, he was the founder and CEO of Tsavo Media, an online content and search network developing next-generation publishing platforms and technology services.
Hirschhorn has led both start-up and established online businesses. Most recently he was President of Sling Media, Inc’s Entertainment Group, which created consumer-driven applications and services for the Slingbox device. Previously, he was Chief Digital Officer at MTV Networks, where he oversaw the company’s digital media businesses, products and strategies. Hirschhorn joined MTV Networks following the acquisition of his company Mischief New Media, which provided interactive services to the entertainment industry.
“Michael’s operational insight and knowledge of the social media market will prove to be a valuable asset as we set out to evolve the MySpace product offering,” said Jon Miller, Chief Digital Officer, News Corporation. “From a product perspective, there’s no better choice than Jason, who is highly regarded as an incredibly talented innovator, media executive and leader, all qualities I know will greatly benefit our team and our users.”
“We were attracted to Michael’s unique background in building and operating successful businesses that fall directly in our sweet spot, and I look forward to leveraging his skill set as we further refine and shape the MySpace vision,” said Mr. Van Natta. “Jason’s reputation for creating compelling consumer experiences that leverage the intersection of technology, design and media is unmatched and we’re excited to have him join us.”
“I am so fortunate to have the opportunity to build upon the successes of the company’s founders and am eager to work with Owen and Jon and the rest of the incredible management team at MySpace as we enter this exciting new phase in the company’s already revered history,” said Mr. Jones. Mr. Hirschhorn continued, “MySpace is one of the most alluring innovations of our time and I am honored to collaborate with Tom Anderson and the rest of the MySpace team to take what is already a stellar product into its next evolution.”
News Corporation (NASDAQ: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV) had total assets as of December 31, 2008 of approximately US$50 billion and total annual revenues of approximately US$33 billion. News Corporation is a diversified global media company with operations in eight industry segments: filmed entertainment; television; cable network programming; direct broadcast satellite television; magazines and inserts; newspapers and information services; book publishing; and other. The activities of News Corporation are conducted principally in the United States, Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, Asia and Latin America.
All the best! Let’s see what the team does to MySpace.
wow, this is an incredible state of affairs. hell week 101.
whos left now? tom, jeff, aber? may be time for who’s left to get off the luxury liner cruise ship they have been riding and regroup at shore. the ride’s is over.
20 million small businesses are waiting for a social network that they can truly call home. mspace needs to strategize and create niche multichannel location based social network of web properties. this will require a merger or acquisition.
Best of Skill.
FindaCompany.com
SpamLocator.com – locate bullshite spammers from Ning.
Go get’em MySpace! Looking forward to watching the battle for social world domination play out.
I have blogged quite successfully on this saucer for awhile but having to search for the new post command and changes; and giant gang members in my face upon opening. Inconvenient and clunky like a covered wagon. Bullshit with these smiling wiesels; how about some class and upgrade and ease up on the blast.
Best of luck to these guys, but we already know what is going to happen:
Facebook will continue to grow and MySpace will stagnate and/or shrink. People are going to go where the people are and are going…
And then Facebook is going to run out of cash and do a big down round because they can’t monetize the Kenyan and Chilean social networks…
I kind of feel like i know what’s going to happen, too. And I still don’t get the Van Natta appointment. Both Jones and Hirschhorn would make perfect CEOs. Van Natta should be VP Biz Dev at best.
Ex- MySpace/FIM here, so that might color my response.
Personally, I can’t speak for any of the new hires. I’ve never met them. But with the way things were, *any* change is a good one. I look forward to seeing what a new team can do.
MySpace is still a big force in the world of social networking despite the shrinkage that past leadership has allowed to happen and while it’s doubtful that anyone can turn MySpace around enough to retake the crown back from Facebook, the decisive action recently is the best chance the company has.
I’m sure that Van Natta has performance tied to his contract and will be held to it more than any other executive at FIM. And now that FIM and MySpace are both “new hires” at the top, any past internal problems the company may have had will likely go away. I expect that there will be a lot of efficiencies and strategies now that were never possible before.
Good luck guys!
-Don (former FIM/MySpace/SpringWidgets)
I can’t tell you how shady it is that you get stuff before employees.
yeah, well, employees are always the last to know anything. It’s best to just get used to it.
yeah… i don’t blame you, i just feel a bit uncomfortable because sometimes you’re wrong and I never know until the email finally hits my work inbox. I’m glad to see that Tom and Aber are still here.
wrong?
My guess is the inside employee details will stop being leaked when Dani exits stage left in the very near future….
hmmm…that’s called PR 101
totally. sometimes i feel like my annual review will come on techcrunch…
Hidden controls; Billboard on my head; bloggers too much trouble to get to blog post; too many illogical steps and sequencing. Not direct in linkage; lousy orchestration, with perfect musicians. Step back a little; baby boomers are half the population, and more bucks. thanx
agree completely.
very poetic.
This blows the Jet’s impressive drafting out of the water.
MySpace is now going to be huge and massively profitable for years to come.
Congrats to ALL involved.
it’s already huge and massively profitable.
not profitable if you take out the 900M search guarantee from Google….
What % of their revenue is a result of the $900MM google deal that is in place until mid 2010?
Is it going to remain a profitable business if google won’t renew?
I agree that it will still be profitable. Question is how much and how they can focus on their current target demographic and monetize better than before. They still have tens millions of users. That to me creates dollars. How do you squeeze more dollars out of a slowly declining number? I say it is possible if Myspace focuses more as opposed to be trying to be a Yahoo type portal.
Constantine from Music.us
.MUSIC Domain Name Extension
Only time will tell…
Van ATTA outt ab running his own million dollar business Mike. Why the hec is he still working for someone else?
typo before above. I meant to say “Van ATTA outta be”
LOL
sorry bout dat
Where’s Jack too?
Looks like they are putting together an awesome team!
I wonder what direction theyre going to take myspace in.
They should get rid of the customisable userprofiles that you can finaly use this website
Myspace needs to be spunoff and taken public. it could be worth $6 billion, especially now that the imaginary http://iamned.com/blog/ recession seems to be over.
Expect to see an even bigger adoption of Flash considering Mike Jones’ background with userplane, one of the pre-eminent Flash shops.
My observation: you have a bunch of really BIG company guys getting together to run MySpace — a bad idea in my book.
Yes big company people they are. But they are also people that have run/big part of successful multi-million dollar sites.
Not just a bunch of board execs from dying companies but with big connections.
Big company people?
Jones is a pure entrepreneur. Only reason he is “from” AOL is because they bought one of his companies. He didn’t stay long after that.
“bad idea”? what are you basing this on?
Seems a bit top heavy. I wonder how much input has Van Natta had in the hiring of the other two and how much was Miller’s decision. It’s a bad mistake to pick someone else’s team especially if the new CEO has not had enough time to assess what is actually needed.
100% Miller’s decision. The COO and CPO positions have been in the works for weeks…long before Van Natta was named.
These guys are moving fast – has Owen already moved down…to handle the face-to-faces, per AndreaF’s comment above?
I like speed. Here’s where they go next: http://bit.ly/pGTDl
It’s time to round out the bases with other new hires using Miller’s great relationships.
If people actually VALUED recorded media still, THAT would be ONE powerful revenue stream for Myspace. The problem there is that it requires a fundamental shift in thinking, something that may not be an easy task. I’ve brainstormed on this and I’ve come up with what seems to be a logical first step. If anyone is interested, shoot me an email.
MySpace needs to get back to its roots as a music site. They have real potential as a distribution platform. See my blog on the topic: http://bit.ly/ugPHe
I doubt it if it is a shrewd move for a management team to be hand-picked like that.
What is going to happen if there is no personal chemistry between the three?
“It’s not profitable if you take out the 900mm google profits”…What kind of BS logic is that…profit is profit, regardless of where it comes from…
and who says MS gets a guarantee of $900 out of the deal, I’m sure they have numbers to hit in order to receive that hefty check.
layoffs: hope the execs choose wisely on the incompetent to leave and hire adept people as incompetence drains the company of its spirit and good people breeds the good in others.
Congrats dudes
Hope the best MySpace forever…
That’s messed up
Solid individuals each but as a team they are very top heavy and ego intensive. The odds of them playing nice together are not good. Toss in Arrington repeatedly throwing Van Natta under the bus (”Van Natta should be VP Biz Dev at best”) and stating either Jones or Hirschorn should have been his boss, and tensions are going to flare. Forget that, no doubt tensions are already flaring. My prediction…mass implosion.
I am not sure how would myspace get better if they don’t get rid of those big money sucker such as the data warehouse manager at myspace…who build a crown stage inside the company that doesn’t allow some of her employees to work on tasks…
What is the end results: myspace paid those employees who can’t perform at their best and those money and resources just go wasted. Layoff can’t help with the existence of such money sucker.
I suggest myspace execs ask this natural question when their managers is “complaining an underperforming employees”: then what are you doing?
It is a manager’s responsibility to ensure bringing out the best from her employees. Rather than discourage and prohibit them.
How is myspace going to take this fact that their manager is secretively undermining the company? I call it FACT because there is written proofs to certainly give out what the myspace data warehouse manager did…