Overheard at the Web 2.0 Summit: “A couple of months ago [MySpace CPO] Jason Hirschhorn held an executive meeting at MySpace. The only goal of the meeting was to figure out which products we’d kill off.”
And boy they sure have killed off a lot of products. CEO Owen Van Natta mentioned the execution of Classifieds, Jobs and Weather yesterday on stage.
We’ve confirmed that Books, Horoscopes, News, Calendars and Polls are also on the chopping block. A total of ten or so products will be flatlined when they’re done with the executions.
It’s clear that MySpace wants to juggle fewer balls. And products that don’t fit the “socialization of content” mantra had better sleep with one eye open. Hirschhorn is coming after them.
That’s all you have to say?
That’s too bad. I had high hopes for MySpace weather.
“MySpace wants to juggle fewer balls”
hehehe
thanks beavis.
This article and the approach taken by Jason Hirschorn seems to be pretty callous. Nobody and no product should safe when a company/division/brand (whatever MySpace is) flails the way it is. Jason is right to get rid of the chaff and keep what works. Now if he truly gets off on killing products and firing people that’s just rude. Which is it? Is Jason just like Jason (Friday the 13th) or is he a good guy doing a tough job that needs doing?
nah, jason is a good guy. he’s killing annoying products, not firing good people. myspace had a horoscopes section? who knew? i’ve been there almost three years and i had no idea the site had such nonsense on it. jason’s strategy makes sense: kill the useless crap no one is looking for, and focus on core strengths.
In other news, MySpace users read books?
MySpace is more than music and ugly blogs? Who knew.
They need to chop the self design feature that lets the usesr create ugly pages with text on background images and outlaw all sparkly image too.
Oh and I’m sure they could do without multiple music players loading at once.
Oh and why do all of the hot girl on Myspcae have babies? Ok don’t answer that. It will make me sad.
It’s called MySpace Lite.
Wow, didn’t even know any of those products existed. Myspace Books? Really?
Calendar and Polls seem like they might be good, maybe they never knew how to integrate the features.
i have to admit i’m not all that familiar with myspace books, either.
From what I remember of MySpace books, it wasn’t all too exciting, I don’t think. It was essentially just a place where you could look at the cover, read the summary, and post a comment about it. A lot like MySpace Movies (also gone: http://faq.mysp...hat/r_id/100061)
Polls has actually been gone for a long time now. I guess MySpace is just now getting around to formerly announcing its demise.
I’m actually a bit surprised to see Calendar go. It seemed like a common thing for “big social sites.” I’m wondering if it’s just personal account calendars, or if that extends to all accounts… if the latter, I can’t imagine bands/comedians/filmmakers are too happy.
And MySpace News? Damn, that’s also been gone a seriously long time.
proof no one goes to myspace to find a job or place an ad. social romper-room confirmed.
I actually used MySpace Jobs a lot over the past year. Granted, I used the other large job aggregation sites, as well. MySpace (well, SimplyHired if we want to be accurate) had (simplyhired:has) a decent offering of jobs from multiple sites.
I remember when some people talked of how MySpace Classifieds (Oodle) was to compete with Craiglist… errr. Right. Every time I went into MS Classifieds, it was just full of spam.
Nice guy like Mengele was a great doctor.
i love myspace with a passion….i dont care whats on it!!! its the f>best!!
No one was working on any of these products anyway. “Cutting” them is meaningless, and they were scheduled to be cut before Jason came to MySpace.