Long-ago lapped by Facebook in popularity and with fast-growing Twitter on its tail, social networking site MySpace is planning a series of updates over the next months that will link its users' posts to those sites more easily and carve out its niche as an entertainment hub more clearly.
Those changes, among others, were unveiled by co-presidents Jason Hirschhorn, 38, and Mike Jones, 34, this week following the abrupt departure of CEO Owen Van Natta in February after just 10 months on the job.
The two remaining executives declined to comment much on Van Natta's departure, other than to say his decision to leave was between him and parent News Corp.'s chief digital officer Jonathan Miller.
They also shed no new light on the ongoing ad-sharing deal with Google Inc., which forms the backbone of MySpace's revenue but expires in August.
The executives acknowledged that change has been slow coming to the site, and critics have often cited its clunkiness compared to Facebook.
MySpace's monthly visitors declined 7% in January from a year ago to 120 million worldwide, compared to Facebook's 471 million visitors, a 100% increase, according to comScore Inc. Twitter grew 1,100% to 74 million visitors over the same time.
Jones said they are focused on "making sure we return to the consumer zeitgeist," not competing feature-for-feature with other social networks.
Hirschhorn said MySpace needs to be more uniquely focused on the 14 million musicians who put songs and videos on the site and how fans interact with them, and is giving more control to artists over their profiles, including with tracking tools. The site is also opening up its platform for games more widely, adding a movie fan page, and rewarding users who act as evangelizers of content.
The site is refocusing its gaze on the core 13-34 age group that represents more than half of its visitors and 84% of all the time spent on the site.
Changes include a better, smarter "stream" that allows users to see more of what their friends are doing in a central location. Previously, videos added by users would not appear on friend's streams, for example.
The site is also rolling out a "Super Post" update bar that allows users to post links, videos and updates to MySpace, Facebook and Twitter all at once.
