MySpace Is Going to Rehab to Die
For all the talk about Justin Timberlake taking over MySpace, it turns out that the real decision maker at the recently sold social network is a former Pepsi executive named Al Dejewski. And Dejewski's is proposing some tough love: detox, shape up, and focus on selling music, for bros. Oh, God, whatever, dad.
"We need to get it on P90X," Dejewski said of MySpace to AdAge. "Clean its system and get back to its foundation. And we've found that foundation is music." Apparently MySpace has deals with the four major music labels, hired not one but two (!) branding agencies, brought on some marketing types from Proctor & Gamble and CBS, is serious about turning things around, this time it's going to be different, yadda yadda whatever.
The key thing to remember is that MySpace, which was sold to ad network Specific Media earlier this summer for less than one tenth its 2005 price, has lost about half its users just since January, with only about 35 million left. "We may have lost some traction to people like Facebook," with its 500 million users, the suit says. Ya think?? Anyway, if there are any music fans left after MySpace subjects them to the big detox (always popular with the alt-rock/hip hop kids), the world can find out if this Pepsi led tech turnaround turns out any better than the last one. (It will not.)
