This presentation examines the rise, fall, and rebranding of Myspace, which once stood as the most popular social networking site in the United States. We first look at the context that allowed Myspace to grow so rapidly, and what mistakes caused it to collapse seemingly just as quickly. Finally, we examine what lessons other social media companies, as well as Myspace, have learned.

1. Marcus White, Taryn Varricchio, Carlee Murray,
Brittany Stephanis, and Lauren Bailey
myspace:growth,collapse,
&reinvention

2. Outline
• Background
• Rise
• Collapse
• Reinvention
• Lessons Learned
• Q&A

3. “thehistoryofthewebislittered withthedebris of‘could-have-beens’ like
friendster.thelessonisclear:thereisnoroomforarroganceonline.moreso
thaninanyotherchannel,complacencyinthisspaceiscommercial suicide.”
-unknown(marketing mag,2008)*

4. background
• Friendster - first successful social network (Bennett,
2013)
• 2003: Google offered to buy Friendster for $30 million
(Marketing Mag, 2008)
• 2003: Myspace founded by four employees of an internet
marketing company then called eUniverse (Stenovec, 2011)

5. background
• 2004: Myspace took over, Friendster started to fall
(Marketing Mag)
• Myspace became a pioneer for influencer marketing
(Dredge)
• Established the concept of making “friends” online
(Bennett)

6. rise
• Distinguishing Features
• Free (Fishkin, 2006)
• Easy to use (Fishkin)
• Share personal information with others (Fishkin)
• Design own layout (Clements, 2014)
• Profile song (Clements)
• Top Friends (Clements)
• Demographic: 16-21 (Fishkin)

7. rise
• June 2004: Record-breaking
• Over one million visitors per month (Jackson &
Madrigal, 2011)
• January 2005: Exponential Growth
• Gained millions of members in the new year (Jackson &
Madrigal)
• December 2008: Peak
• 75.9 million monthly unique visitors in the U.S.
(Gillette, 2011)

8. Figure 1. Myspace vs.
Facebook. (Dossett, 2015)

9. “Peopleareonlinerightnow.Wewantourpieceofit.It’sreally
hardtosay,butI’mhopingthatwe’re,youknow,2,3,400million,
thatwecanexpandintoallthesemarkets”-TomANderson,2009
(Rao,2009)

10. Collapse
• April 2008: FB overtook Myspace globally (Stenovec)
• 2009: Myspace still biggest in terms of traffic (Dredge)
• April 2009: Co-Founders Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe
step down (Lee, 2011)
• November 2009: Myspace spends $1 million a month for
space they never move into (Jackson & Madrigal)
• Jan 2011: Myspace lays off about 50% of staff (Stenovec)

11. collapse
• Corporate policies slowed growth down (Dredge, 2015)
• Threw money around to try to compete with Facebook
• Bloated with too many different things, Facebook was only
doing one thing
• All about making money- added spammy advertisements with
no regard for the user

12. “Idon’twantMyspacetobewhoIwaslastnightthroughabunchofdrunkenpicturesinadrunken
stupor,andIdon’twantittobewhoIamrightnowonwhatI’mtypingontheInternet...Iwantit
toconstantlybeaboutwhoI’mgoingtobe,whatIhavetoofferthenextday.”-JustinTimberlake
(Warner,2012)
Reinvention
Figure 2. Justin
Timberlake speaks at
Consumer Electronics
Show (Miller, 2012)

13. reinvention
• Summer 2011: Timberlake, Specific Media Group purchase
MySpace for $35M
• “In a single sentence, it’s a social network for the
creative community to connect to their fans.”-Tim
Vanderhook, Myspace CEO (Baltin, 2012)
• “The [music] player persists across every page as if to
say, ‘You’re on Myspace for the music.’” (Peterson, 2013)

14. Figure 3. Myspace’s growth from December 2013-December 2014.
(Lella & Lipsman, 2015)

15. “Facebookhasdoneareallygoodjobofnotdoingthat…Lessonlearned:do
onethinggreat,notdomanythingsgood.Orinourcase,weweredoing
manythingskindacrappy.”- SeanPercival,2015(Dredge,2015)

16. LessonsLearned
What went wrong?
• Things got too corporate-- “Politics, greed all the
horrible things that came with big corporations slowly
crept in” - Sean Percival (Dredge, 2015)
• Too much money spent-- “I’m pretty sure that in every
market we lost money…” -Percival (Dredge)
• Not enough direction-- “The site was such a massive
spaghetti-ball mess.”-Percival (Dredge)

17. q&a

18. ReferenceList
A Brief History Of 7 Social Networks (And How They Used To Look) [PHOTOS]. (n.d.). Retrieved
December 17, 2015, from http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/social-networks-early-history/493734
Baltin, S. (2012, September 24). Justin Timberlake's MySpace Gears Up for Relaunch. Retrieved
December 15, 2015, from http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/earshot/justin-timberlake-myspace-
vanderhook-lauch-373752
Clements, S. (2014, June 5). 10 Reasons MySpace Was The Best Social Network Ever. Retrieved
December 17, 2015, from http://whatculture.com/offbeat/10-reasons-myspace-was-the-best-social-
network-ever.php/11
Dredge, S. (2015, March 6). MySpace – what went wrong: ‘The site was a massive spaghetti-ball
mess’. Retrieved December 15, 2015, from
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/06/myspace-what-went-wrong-sean-percival-spotify
Dosset, M. (2015, July 1). Rise and Fall of Myspace is A Lesson for Facebook: Retrieved
December 17, 2015. from https://letschatbusiness.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/myspace-v-
facebook-bbw.jpg
Fishkin, R. (2006, July 27). A Simple Explanation for Why MySpace is So Successful. Retrieved
December 17, 2015, from https://moz.com/blog/a-simple-explanation-for-why-myspace-is-so-
successful
Gillette, F. (2011, June 22). The Rise and Inglorious Fall of Myspace. Retrieved December 17,
2015, from http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/magazine/content/11_27/b4235053917570.htm#p2

19. ReferenceList,Cont’d
Lee, A. (2011, June 30). Myspace Collapse: How The Social Network Fell Apart. Retrieved
December 15, 2015, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/30/how-myspace-fell-
apart_n_887853.html
Lella, A & Lipsman, A. comScore. (2015, March 26). 2015 U.S. digital future in focus.
Reston, Virginia: comScore.
Madrigal, A., & Jackson, N. (2011, January 12). The Rise and Fall of MySpace. Retrieved
December 15, 2015, from http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/01/the-
rise-and-fall-of-myspace/69444/
MySpace vs Friendster: The curse of complacency - Marketing Magazine. (n.d.). Retrieved
December 17, 2015, from https://www.marketingmag.com.au/hubs-
c/myspacevsfriendsterthecurseofcomplacency/
Miller, E. (2012, January 9). Recording-Artistactor-Justin-Timberlake-Appears-During-a-
Panasonic-Picture. Retrieved December 15, 2015 from
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/recording-artist-actor-justin-
timberlake-appears-during-a-news-photo/136647193

20. ReferenceList,cont’d
O'Reilly, L. (2015, September 15). MySpace has undergone a 'surprising renaissance' and
now it's going after teens. Retrieved December 15, 2015, from
http://www.businessinsider.com/myspace-ceo-tim-vanderhook-interview-2015-9
Peterson, T. (2013, October 1). MySpace's Music-Centered Relaunch Turned Up Volume, But
Is Anybody Listening? Retrieved December 15, 2015, from
http://adage.com/article/special-report-music-and-marketing/myspace-relaunch-turned-
volume-listening/244361/
Rao, L. (2009, February 4). Charlie Rose: The MySpace Interview. Going After Small
Business. Retrieved December 15, 2015, from http://techcrunch.com/2009/02/04/charlie-
rose-the-myspace-interview/
Stenovec, T. (2011, August 29). Myspace History: A Timeline Of The Social Network's
Biggest Moments. Retrieved December 15, 2015, from
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/29/myspace-history-timeline_n_887059.html
Warner, K. (2012, November 16). Justin Timberlake Explains New Myspace -- And What It
Means For His Music. Retrieved December 15, 2015, from
http://www.mtv.com/news/1697512/justin-timberlake-new-myspace-music