Former Facebook executive named MySpace CEO
SAN FRANCISCO, April 24 (Xinhua) — News Corp. on Friday named Owen Van Natta, a former Facebook executive, as the new chief executive officer (CEO) of social networking website MySpace.
The appointment was effective immediately, News Corp., which owns MySpace, said in a statement.
Natta will report directly to Jonathan Miller, News Corp.’s chief digital officer who took the role only this month.
Before leaving Facebook in 2008, Natta served as its chief revenue officer and helped negotiate an investment of 240 million U.S. dollars for the social networking website from Microsoft. Most recently, he was CEO of Playlist, an online music company.
Natta is replacing Chris DeWolfe, co-founder of MySpace who agreed to step down as CEO on Wednesday.
News Corp. also announced earlier this week that discussion is underway for Tom Anderson, another co-founder who now serves as MySpace’s president, to assume a new role in the organization.
MySpace’s management reshuffle is part of News Corp.’s efforts to reinvigorate the social networking website, some analysts said.
MySpace is still the dominant social networking website in the United States, but its growth has stagnated in the past year.
Meanwhile, Facebook, which surpassed MySpace to become the most visited social networking website worldwide a year ago, is growing fast in the U.S..
Tags: CEO, News Corp, Owen Van Natta, Xinhua News Corp