15 March 2010 | Author: D. Warburton Search Copywriter

MySpace plots to usurp Facebook as top social network

Owners of social networking pioneer MySpace are intent on breathing new life into the struggling site and reclaiming their former pole position from rivals Facebook.

The Guardian reports that MySpace's newly-elected co-presidents, Jason Hirschhorn and Mike Jones, are planning a major turnaround for the fallen site, with Hirschhorn emphasising that "MySpace is not dead."

CEO Mike Jones told the Guardian's Bobbie Johnson: "We have a huge audience, which is fantastic - there are over 100 million users on MySpace.

"But it's at a precipice where it needs to jump to the next level of evolution."

Since its $580 million (£332 million) takeover by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in 2005, MySpace's fortunes have plummeted due to the rising popularity of Facebook, with millions of users abandoning the site in favour of its more streamlined counterpart. Facebook's growth in the UK isn't showing any signs of slowing down, whereas MySpace is continuing to lose users, business and momentum.

But this status quo may be set to change, if Hirschhorn and Jones live up to their lofty ideals of transforming MySpace's success in the next few months. The pair are planning to unveil new designs to make the site more user-friendly, though still retaining a focus on idiosyncrasy, while improved technologies will make it easier to share information with other users. New partnerships are also being arranged to snag more games and applications from third parties, while extraneous and unpopular products such as horoscopes will be dropped.

While the co-presidents don't deny that MySpace has fallen off the radar to a dangerous extent, they seem convinced that a turnaround is possible, giving examples of other companies that have returned from the brink to enjoy great success.

"Focus is everything," said Hirschhorn.

"When I look at Apple, when I look at Nintendo - when I look at the great companies that have turned themselves around and re- defined themselves - it's because they have focused on a specific market, a specific set of things and partnered for the rest.

Jones explained: "It's nothing that's going to happen tomorrow. We're doing a lot of tests, researching a lot of things and over the next few months we'll be releasing some fundamental changes. When we feel good about them we'll go out and beat that drum and bring the noise back to MySpace."