MySpace Co-President Resigns
In April 2009, former Facebook exec Owen Van Natta was hired to replace MySpace's founding CEO Chris DeWolfe. Then last February, MySpace canned Van Natta and promoted insiders Mike Jones and Jason Hirschhorn to co-presidents. Now, Hirschorn is making his exit from the company, leaving Jones to carry the ball as a solo act.
In a prepared statement issued Thursday afternoon,, Jon Miller, the executive who has responsibility for MySpace for parent company News Corp., suggested that the resignation was related to Hirschhorn's personal desire to return to New York.
As many people know, Jason is like family to me, and as expected, he's done everything we asked of him and more. We're incredibly grateful for the passion and enthusiasm he brought to the company. And as I know Jason agrees, Mike Jones has done an outstanding job leading MySpace into its next evolution and is the right person to take the reins. There are no plans to bring in additional management.
All that may be true enough. Indeed, Hirschorn confirmed the official reason in a Twitter post - "Yes, I am moving back to NYC. Concrete jungle where dreams are made of. I believe in MySpace, its leader Jonesy and its wonderful team" but all the happy talk in the world won't quell the speculation that MySpace is in trouble.
The company used to be the biggest social network - a title now owned by Facebook. What's more, noted TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington "they are also losing page views and users at a rapid clip. MySpace Music is hemorrhaging money to the labels. And their lucrative search deal with Google is ending in two weeks, and the company has yet to announce how they'll replace that revenue." Another view of what it may mean from PaidContent's Staci Kramer: "On one level, it really may be nothing more than Hirschhorn admitting what many have known all along--his interest in solving the puzzle of MySpace was at odds with with his dislike of the bi-coastal commute. On another level, no matter how uninteresting the reasons may turn out to be, his departure instantly set off another wave of conjecture and negative predictions about the social network's future."