Before there was Facebook, there was MySpace, once the world’s most dominating social networking company. In the summer of 2005, one of the biggest deals in internet history made headlines when News Corp., famously known as Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, acquired MySpace for $580 million in cash. In the business realm, it seemed that with the backing of the media giant, MySpace would have the world at its fingertips. And to the outside, it appeared that Myspace was going to be unstoppable. Find out how MySpace got unfriended on Episode 51 of The Great Fail.
Episode Sources
The Rise and Fall of Myspace, The Atlantic
MySpace – what went wrong: ‘The site was a massive spaghetti-ball mess’
MySpace: Why It Failed & When It All Went Wrong
Why Did Myspace Fail And How To Avoid This In Your Startup
Why Facebook Beat MySpace, and Why MySpace’s Revised Strategy will Probably Fail
Myspace Collapse: How The Social Network Fell Apart
News Corp.’s Failed Social Experiment: Why MySpace Didn’t Deliver
Facebook in Trouble: Declining Users and $230 Billion Stock Crash
News Corp. to Acquire Owner of MySpace.com, The New York Times
Special Guest
Tom Standage
Deputy Editor of The Economist
Tom Standage is Deputy Editor of The Economist and editor of its future-gazing annual, The World Ahead. He joined The Economist as science correspondent in 1998 and was subsequently appointed technology editor, business editor and digital editor. He is the author of seven history books, including “Writing on the Wall” (2013), “The Victorian Internet” (1998) and the New York Times bestsellers “A History of the World in 6 Glasses” (2005) and “An Edible History of Humanity” (2009). His most recent book, “A Brief History of Motion” (2021) was named an Editors’ Choice by the New York Times Book Review. Tom studied engineering and computer science at Oxford University and has written for other publications including the New York Times, the Guardian and Wired, taking a particular interest in technology’s social and historical impact.