MySpace's workforce is being slashed by half, the
struggling website's owner News Corp confirmed
yesterday.
Around 500 staff will lose their jobs, said the
company's boss Mike Jones.
"These changes were purely driven by issues
related to our legacy business, and in no way
reflect the performance of the new product," said
Jones, who was keen to defend the site's recent
revamp as an entertainment portal.
MySpace plans to ink "strategic local partnerships"
in the UK, Germany and Australia to help the firm
manage ad sales and content in those regions.
Fox Networks will work with MySpace in Blighty,
but the company is yet to finalise similar
agreements in Oz and Germany.
Last month MySpace finally signed a multi-year
search and advertising deal with Google, of which
financial terms were not revealed.
MySpace secured a handsome $900m search
and keyword services deal with Google in 2006,
but it expired in June 2010, sparking speculation
that the search giant would ditch the unloved
social networking site.
The fact that MySpace scored a new partnership
with Google, no matter how paltry, may explain
why the company is yet to publicly search for a
buyer of the site.
With the announced lay-offs all that could
change, but Google's agreement may just have
kept MySpace on Rupert Murdoch's lap – for
now. ®
Source: Http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/12/myspace_job_cuts_confirmed/
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