[LINK] "Flailing MySpace Loses CEO, Death Spiral Continues"

[rfmcdonald]

Wired isn't very positive about MySpace's future.

First, the audience it stole from Friendster left for Facebook. Now, Owen Van Natta, the former Facebook executive Rupert Murdoch hired less than a year ago to reverse the site’s declining fortunes, has also left, MySpace announced late Wednesday night.

The bell has been tolling for MySpace for years, with users leaving the site pretty much as they found it: as a place to hear what a band sounds like and see what they look like in a matter of seconds, rather than as a place where they establish an online identity and communicate with friends.

After signing on last April, Van Natta wisely acknowledged this change in how people were using MySpace — as a media site rather than as a social network — by doubling down on the ad-supported MySpace Music service. However, the company was not able to fix problems with the service including poor integration with existing band pages, which left many users confused or uninterested in the service.

According to an Ad Age source, Van Natta bailed on MySpace because he was frustrated by the company’s “slow pace of change” and “entrenched culture.” A dearth of fast, competent, loyal software engineers in the Los Angeles area reportedly slowed things down even further. MySpace is headquartered in Beverly Hills, in southern California. Facebook, which evolves its design and feature set so often that some users can’t keep up with the changes, is located in the more technology-oriented Palo Alto, California.