Journal 14, June 28

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090623/ap_on_hi_te/us_myspace_job_cuts

Myspace seemed to have started the social networking craze, but now it may be the first one to be losing track. Recently announced News Corp. has cut 400 domestic Myspace employees and within a week it was also released that 300 international jobs would be cut. With this downsize, Mypace plans to close 4 of its 15 overseas offices in the near future. Myspace Chief Executive Owen Van Natta had this to say, "Our goal to tap into as many international markets as possible drove us to create too many offices around the globe, and with them came inefficiencies". Though this problem of inefficiencies may be very true, I think there is a little more behind this large job cut. I think that recently Myspace has simply lost ground on rivals Facebook and Twitter. I personally began my social networking experience with Myspace many years ago but have recently deleted my account and use Facebook. Myspace was getting to out of control for me. My account was being hacked into and there was just to much junk associated with its use. It just seemed that spam was everywhere. Obviously these same things can happen on Facebook, but it seems to me that it is kept groomed a lot better. I think many people have realized the same thing in the recent past and this is a big reason for so many cuts on the part of Myspace. The combined cuts of domestic and international is said to be about 40% of the companies total workforce. This cut also comes as Myspace tries to match the productivity of Facebook with the respective amount of employees. What do I mean? Facebook is said to have about 850 employees worldwide and Myspace, before the cuts, had a staggering 1,900 worldwide employee base. Myspace executives have learned that just as much productivity can be accomplished with fewer employees; after all Facebook still has about 75 million more users than Myspace, yet so few employees to manage them. If these employee cuts by Myspace cause them to restructure the sight and its outdated features, then they may continue to compete with thriving rival Facebook. But as far as I can tell, if these cuts do not affect the site format and features, Myspace will continue to tumble downhill in the near future. People have found the new social networking site and Myspace needs to compete with it, and maybe that is the idea by starting with such a large job cut.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/myspace-to-cut-300-international-jobs-in-overhaul

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/06/23/236588/myspace-to-cut-another-300-international-jobs.htm