Myspace
On the 1st of August 2003, a group of employees from eUniverse launched MySpace in just ten days. Brad Greenspan oversaw the project while Chris DeWolfe served as CEO and Tom Anderson took the role of president. The team used ColdFusion to build the platform quickly because it offered superior development speed compared to JavaServer Pages. Friendster had over ten times more developers but could not match MySpace's rapid iteration cycle. Users gained access to customize backgrounds and page layouts immediately after launch. The first accounts belonged to eUniverse staff who competed to sign up the most new members. A complete infrastructure for finance, human resources, and server capacity supported the early growth. By late 2003, the domain name MySpace.com transitioned from file storage to social networking. Greenspan decided against charging fees to ensure community success.
In July 2005, News Corporation purchased MySpace for $580 million. At that time, the site hosted 16 million monthly users and was growing exponentially. Within one year, the company tripled its value from the purchase price. By January 2006, the platform signed up 200,000 new users every day. A year later, daily registrations reached 320,000 users. ComScore reported that average users viewed over 660 pages per month during this period. In June 2006, MySpace surpassed Yahoo Mail and Google Search to become the most visited website in the United States. The 100 millionth account opened on the 9th of August 2006, in the Netherlands. That same month, a landmark advertising deal with Google guaranteed $900 million over three years. Eric Schmidt stated that internal metrics pointed directly to MySpace as the place where user-generated content thrived. By October 2006, revenue grew from $1 million per month to $30 million per month. Half of that income came from the Google agreement while the rest came from display ads sold by an in-house team.
On the 19th of April 2008, Facebook overtook MySpace in Alexa rankings for the first time. By May 2009, Facebook surpassed MySpace in unique U.S. visitors. News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch expressed frustration that the site never met expectations as a distribution outlet for Fox studio content. DeWolfe and Anderson gradually lost their status within Murdoch's inner circle of executives. Peter Chernin departed the company in June 2009 after serving as president and COO. Jonathan Miller joined News Corporation in charge of digital media but shuffled the executive team just three weeks later. Tom Anderson stepped down while Chris DeWolfe was replaced by Owen Van Natta. A meeting at News Corporation in March 2009 catalyzed this management shakeup. The Google search deal was about to expire when key personnel left to form startups. In June 2009, layoffs reduced the workforce from 1,600 employees to 1,000. Danah Boyd noted that companies might serially rise, fall, and disappear based on influential peers pulling others along. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal launched an investigation into children's exposure to pornography on MySpace in 2006. The resulting media frenzy gave the site a reputation as a vortex of perversion.
On the 11th of February 2016, Time Inc. announced it had purchased Myspace and its parent company for $87 million. On the 31st of January 2018, Meredith Corporation acquired Time Inc. Later that year, on the 4th of November 2019, Meredith spun off Viant Technology Holding Inc. and sold it to Viant Technology LLC. Before these transactions, Specific Media Group and Justin Timberlake jointly purchased the company for approximately $35 million on the 29th of June 2011. CNN reported the sale price was far less than the $580 million News Corp paid in 2005. Murdoch called the original purchase a huge mistake while Time magazine compared it to AOL's acquisition by Time Warner. Losses from the last quarter of 2010 reached $156 million, over double the previous year. The deadline for bids passed without any offers above the reserve price of $100 million being submitted. Market research figures released by Comscore suggested MySpace lost 10 million users between January and February 2011 alone. Traffic fell 44% from a year earlier to 37.7 million U.S. visitors.
Shortly after selling to News Corporation in 2005, the website launched MySpace Records with JD Mangosing as CEO. As of June 2014, over 53 million songs had been uploaded by 14.2 million artists. Artists including Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, Lily Allen, and My Chemical Romance gained fame through the platform. In late 2007, the site launched The MySpace Transmissions series featuring live-in-studio recordings. On the 18th of March 2019, it was revealed that Myspace lost all user content from launch until 2015 due to a botched server migration. Over 50 million songs and twelve years worth of content were permanently destroyed. The Internet Archive recovered 490,000 MP3s using unknown means during an anonymous academic study conducted between 2008 and 2010. These songs are collectively known as the MySpace Dragon Hoard. Since early 2022, music upload and playback have been disabled on the website. Tim Vanderhook alleged Google used their acquisition of YouTube to take away music deals they otherwise would have secured.
At QCon London in 2008, Chief Systems Architect Dan Farino indicated the site sent 100 gigabits of data per second out to the Internet. The infrastructure consisted of over 4,500 web servers running Windows Server 2003 and IIS 6.0. More than 1,200 cache servers ran 64-bit Windows Server 2003 while over 500 database servers operated SQL Server 2005. A custom distributed file system ran on Gentoo Linux. In May 2016, data for almost 360 million Myspace accounts appeared on TheRealDeal dark market website. This breach included email addresses, usernames, and weakly encrypted passwords stored without cryptographic salt. Analysis suggested exposure occurred around mid-2008 to early 2009, eight years before being made public. On the 8th of August 2006, Google signed a $900 million deal to provide search facility and advertising on MySpace. By late 2007, Nielsen//NetRatings reported active reach was anywhere from 10 to 15 times higher in Spain, France, and Germany than for runner-up Facebook.
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Common questions
When was MySpace launched and who founded it?
MySpace launched on the 1st of August 2003 after a group of employees from eUniverse built the platform in ten days. Brad Greenspan oversaw the project while Chris DeWolfe served as CEO and Tom Anderson took the role of president.
How much did News Corporation pay to purchase MySpace in July 2005?
News Corporation purchased MySpace for $580 million in July 2005 when the site hosted 16 million monthly users. The company tripled its value within one year of this acquisition.
What happened to user content on MySpace between 2015 and 2019?
On the 18th of March 2019, it was revealed that Myspace lost all user content from launch until 2015 due to a botched server migration. Over 50 million songs and twelve years worth of content were permanently destroyed during this event.
Who bought MySpace in June 2011 and for how much money?
Specific Media Group and Justin Timberlake jointly purchased the company for approximately $35 million on the 29th of June 2011. CNN reported the sale price was far less than the $580 million News Corp paid in 2005.
When did Facebook overtake MySpace as the most visited website in the United States?
Facebook overtook MySpace in Alexa rankings for the first time on the 19th of April 2008. By May 2009, Facebook surpassed MySpace in unique U.S. visitors.