How MySpace Lost Its Crown

Failure to innovate halts site's once red-hot momentum, letting Facebook take the lead
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 17, 2009 7:50 AM CDT
How MySpace Lost Its Crown
Figures from May show that MySpace, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, fell behind Facebook for the first time.   (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

MySpace was overtaken by Facebook for the first time last month and without some serious innovation, Rupert Murdoch's big buy may end up joining Friendster in the ranks of the also-rans, Dawn Chmielewski and David Sarno write in the Los Angeles Times. The world of social networking moves at an unforgiving pace, the two note, and MySpace has been playing catch-up instead of leading, as its own initiatives tanked.

Missteps included an overreliance on a portal strategy—attempting to build an audience around entertainment content—while Facebook managed to hang on to notoriously fickle social networking users by adapting and absorbing aspects of upstart rivals like Twitter.
MySpace still has a hefty 70 million users, but the site is laying off almost a third of its staff.
(More MySpace stories.)

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