CHANGES AT FACEBOOK AND MYSPACE

By: STAFF, USA Today | News Channel 7
Published: March 05, 2009

As reported in today's USA Today, after a major battle, Myspace lost three of its key executives to a major redesign project at Facebook. Changes will include a more interactive homepage that will allow users to have more control over what appears on their newsfeed. The homepage will now have a more "twitter-like" feel to it, with the status box asking "What's on your mind?". Users can now post videos and photos in their status box as well.

While this is good news for Facebook, the lost of three key executives comes as a low blow to Myspace at such a hard economic time. Myspace has most recently lost its News Corp. Executive and will lose its Chief Operating Officer, Senior Vice President Engineering, and Senior Vice President of Product Strategy, all three of which plan to leave and begin a business of their own. To add to the mass leaving of upper-level management, the News Corp. Chief Operating Officer, Amit Kapur, who oversaw Fox Interactive, who owns Myspace, will make his departure in June.

Due to the state of the current economy, ad sales have been cut and Myspace was forced to layoff 1,600 of its workers last month; however, Myspace does expect 2009 to be a good year for the social network. In a memo to employees sent out Wednesday, Myspace CEO and co-founder, Chris DeWolfe, was quoted saying, "We are effectively monetizing the stickiest sections of our site, such as music." Myspace hopes to expand its estimated $750 million renevue this year.