Yesterday evening MySpace announced that Owen Van Natta, MySpace’s CEO leaves the company.
He will be replaced immediately by newly-promoted co-presidents Mike Jones and Jason Hirschhorn.
Van Natta joined MySpace to lead a fresh management team to pick up the fight against Facebook, the company Van Natta had been an executive at.
In a statement from Jon Miller, News Corp.’s (the owner of MySpace) Chairman and CEO of Digital Media, tried to explain the somewhat abrupt announcement.
“Owen took on an incredible challenge in working to refocus and revitalize MySpace, and the business has shown very positive signs recently as a result of his dedicated work. However, in talking to Owen about his priorities both personally and professionally going forward, we both agreed that it was best for him to step down at this time. I want to thank Owen for all of his efforts.”
In a short comment Van Natta called MySpace “an incredibly unique place” where he and his management team “made real gains in terms of product focus and user experience. I’m proud of the work, we’ve all accomplished together and look forward to watching its continued growth.”
The once proud king of social networks has a problem dealing with the competition from Facebook and finding a new place in the social media space. From a personal view, the last thing MySpace needs right now is the instability of a change in management. But on the other hand, it might turn out to be what the company needed. What do you think?
Hopefully, MySpace will find their role and by this of course I also mean a profitable business plan.
Read the official announcement here. And please share your comments.
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