Myspace facts for kids
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| Type of business | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
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Type of site
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Social networking service |
| Available in | 14 languages |
| Founded | August 1, 2003 |
| Headquarters | United States |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Owner | Viant Technology LLC |
| Founder(s) |
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| Key people |
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| Employees | 150 (2018) |
| Registration | Required |
| Launched | August 1, 2003 |
| Current status | Active |
Myspace was a very popular social networking service from the United States. It started on August 1, 2003. Myspace was one of the first social networks to become famous all over the world. It had a big impact on technology, pop culture, and music. Many early companies like YouTube grew because of Myspace. It also helped launch other successful companies like Zynga. From 2005 to 2009, Myspace was the biggest social networking site in the world.
In July 2005, a company called News Corporation bought Myspace for $580 million. By June 2006, Myspace was the most visited website in the United States. It had more visitors than Yahoo and Google. At its busiest time in April 2008, Myspace had 115 million visitors each month. Around that time, Facebook was also growing fast. In May 2009, Facebook became more popular than Myspace in the U.S. Since then, fewer people have used Myspace, even after it changed its look several times. In 2019, Myspace had seven million monthly visitors.
In June 2011, a company called Specific Media Group and singer Justin Timberlake bought Myspace for about $35 million. Later, in February 2016, Time Inc. bought Myspace. Then, in January 2018, Meredith Corporation bought Time Inc. Finally, in November 2019, Myspace was sold to Viant Technology LLC.
Contents
The Story of Myspace
How Myspace Started (2003–2005)
In August 2003, some employees from a company called eUniverse saw how popular Friendster was. Friendster was another social networking site. These employees decided to create their own website with similar features. In just 10 days, the first version of Myspace was ready. The company already had everything needed, like money, staff, and computers.
Chris DeWolfe was the first CEO of Myspace. Tom Anderson was the first president. They worked with a team of programmers. The first people to use Myspace were eUniverse employees. The company even held contests to see who could get the most new users. eUniverse used its 20 million users to help Myspace grow quickly.
One important person was Toan Nguyen, who helped make the website stable. Another co-founder, Aber Whitcomb, helped design the software. Myspace allowed users to change the background and look of their pages. This was a big reason why it became so popular.
Myspace became popular because it made talking to friends easy. Before Myspace, many people used Instant Messaging (IM). But Myspace became so popular that people started using it more than IM to send messages.
The name "MySpace.com" was first used for a file storage site. But by late 2003, it became a social network. Myspace quickly became a favorite among teenagers and young adults. In February 2005, Chris DeWolfe talked with Mark Zuckerberg about buying Facebook. But he turned down Zuckerberg's offer to sell Facebook for $75 million.
Becoming Super Popular (2005–2009)
In July 2005, News Corporation bought Myspace for $580 million. At that time, Myspace had 16 million users each month and was growing very fast. News Corporation saw it as a good way to make money from online ads.
After being bought, Myspace kept growing. In January 2006, 200,000 new users joined every day. A year later, 320,000 new users joined daily. Myspace even became the most visited website in the U.S. It was more popular than Yahoo! Users spent a lot of time on the site, looking at over 660 pages a month.
In 2006, Myspace launched versions in 11 other countries. This included places in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. By then, 30 million of its 90 million users were from outside the U.S.
On August 9, 2006, the 100 millionth Myspace account was created. That same month, Myspace made a huge deal with Google. Google agreed to pay Myspace $900 million over three years. In return, Google got to show its search results and ads on Myspace. This deal was worth much more than what News Corporation paid for Myspace.
By October 2006, Myspace was making $30 million a month. Half of this came from the Google deal. The rest came from other ads sold by Myspace. In 2007, Myspace was the biggest social network in many European countries. It was much more popular than Facebook in places like Spain, France, and Germany.
Myspace also made deals with big companies like Sony. In 2007, Myspace worked with Sony BMG, a record label. This allowed music to be put directly on the Myspace platform. Sony was interested because Myspace had 110 million users. Many music artists also started their careers on Myspace.
In late 2007 and early 2008, Myspace was still the top social networking site. It usually had more visitors than Facebook. At first, Facebook was mainly for college students. This meant it did not hurt Myspace's popularity much. At its peak, Myspace was valued at $12 billion. It had over 300 million registered users.
Why Myspace Declined (2009–2016)
On April 19, 2008, Facebook started to get more visitors than Myspace. In May 2009, Facebook officially passed Myspace in the U.S. After this, Myspace started to lose users steadily.
One reason for the decline was that Myspace focused on entertainment and music. But Facebook and Twitter kept adding new features for social networking. The big ad deal with Google also caused problems. It made Myspace put too many ads on its pages, which made the site slow and hard to use. Facebook, on the other hand, had a cleaner design.
Some people also worried about safety on Myspace. There were problems with spam and bad links. This made the site seem less friendly. Many teenagers who loved Myspace started moving to Facebook. Facebook was seen as safer and had more features.
The CEO of Myspace when it was owned by Viant, Tim Vanderhook, said that Google played a role in Myspace's decline. He said Google used YouTube, which they owned, to get artists to put their music on YouTube instead of Myspace. This hurt Myspace a lot because music was a big part of its site. He also said Google's search engine might have directed users away from Myspace.
In 2009, Myspace tried to redesign its site to get users back. But users often did not like these changes.
By February 2011, Myspace had lost many users. News Corporation decided to sell the site. On June 29, 2011, Specific Media bought Myspace for about $35 million. This was much less than the $580 million News Corp paid in 2005. The head of News Corp, Rupert Murdoch, later called buying Myspace a "huge mistake."
New Owners and Changes (2016–2019)
On February 11, 2016, Time Inc. bought Myspace. Then, on January 31, 2018, Meredith Corporation bought Time Inc. Finally, on November 4, 2019, Meredith sold Myspace to Viant Technology LLC.
In May 2016, it was found that data from almost 360 million Myspace accounts was available online. This included email addresses and usernames. This data breach likely happened around 2008 or 2009.
Myspace Today (Since 2019)
In March 2019, Myspace lost almost all content from before 2016. This happened because of a problem when moving servers. Over 50 million songs and 12 years of content were lost forever. In April 2019, the Internet Archive managed to save about 490,000 songs. These songs are now known as the "MySpace Dragon Hoard."
As of October 5, 2024, Myspace is mostly in a "read-only" mode. No new articles have been published since early 2022. Many images on the site are broken, and existing songs cannot be played. However, media uploads are now working again. Myspace's official account has also started some new activity.
What Myspace Could Do
Myspace had many features for its users. From 2005, users could put YouTube videos on their profiles. Myspace tried to stop this for a short time, but users protested, so they allowed it again.
People could also use Myspace on their mobile phones. In 2006, some phones had "Myspace Mobile" to check profiles. Myspace also offered classified ads, which grew quickly. It used to have an instant messaging tool called MySpace IM.
Music on Myspace
After Myspace was sold in 2005, it started its own record label called MySpace Records. This was to find new music talent on Myspace Music. Artists could upload their songs and albums. Many famous artists like My Chemical Romance, Nicki Minaj, Lily Allen, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry became known through Myspace. By 2010, over eight million artists had been discovered on the site.
As mentioned, a server problem in March 2019 caused Myspace to lose most of its music and content from before 2016. Since early 2022, you cannot upload or play music on the website.
MySpaceTV
On May 16, 2007, Myspace worked with news companies like National Geographic to show professional videos. On June 27, 2007, Myspace launched MySpaceTV. This was a place for videos.
On October 22, 2007, Myspace launched its first original web series called Roommates. It was like a TV show but online. Later, other shows and channels, like TMZ, also came to MySpaceTV.
How Myspace Changed Its Look
On March 10, 2010, Myspace added new features. It suggested games, music, and videos based on what users liked. Security was also improved. Users could choose if their content was for "friends only," "18 or older," or "everyone."
In October 2010, Myspace tried a new design. The goal was to focus on music and attract younger people. The word "my" in the logo changed to a simple font, followed by a symbol for a space. Myspace also started working with Facebook Connect. This showed that Facebook had become the main social network.
In January 2011, Myspace reduced its staff by 47%. Fewer and fewer people were using the site.
In September 2012, another new design was announced. It was more visual and worked well on tablets. This design was released on January 15, 2013. However, in June 2013, this redesign deleted all old blogs, which made many users upset.
Different Versions of Myspace
Myspace Around the World
Since early 2006, Myspace offered different versions for different regions. For example, users in the UK would see other UK users and local events. These versions also offered local languages or adjusted for different spellings, like "favorites" in the U.S. and "favourites" elsewhere.
Myspace on Mobile Phones
Myspace also had a mobile app. It allowed users to create and share gif images. Users could also watch live streams of concerts. New users could join the app using Facebook or Twitter, or by email.
The Myspace mobile app is no longer available on the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store. You can still visit Myspace.com on a mobile device, but it has fewer features than the computer version.
Myspace Radio
The app used to let users play Myspace radio channels. You could pick stations by music type, or listen to artist stations. You could also create your own station. However, since early 2022, the radio player no longer works on Myspace.com.
See also
In Spanish: Myspace para niños
- List of social networking websites
- MySpace angle, a way of taking profile pictures
- Myspace IM
- MySpace Records
- SpaceHey, a website that looks like old Myspace
