by Jon Swartz USA Today Mar. 13, 2010 12:00 AM
BEVERLY HILLS - Facebook thumped it, and Twitter threatens it as a source for entertainment news and real-time searches.
But MySpace, nestled in the entertainment capital of the world, thinks it can survive - even thrive - as a repository for all things music, "Avatar" and "Twilight" for the under-35 crowd.
"It would be silly to count us out," says Jason Hirschhorn, who, with Mike Jones, runs the company as co-president. They replaced Owen Van Natta, who was jettisoned as CEO last month after less than 10 months on the job.
"There is a pulse of pop culture on MySpace," says Hirschhorn, a former MTV exec.
They have their work cut out for them. MySpace, a unit of News Corp., has stumbled through two CEO resignations in the past year, while Facebook and Twitter surged. Nonetheless, MySpace remains one of the Internet's most enduring brands. It is profitable, and it is expected to haul in more than $350 million in revenue this year - mostly from ads.
Hirschhorn acknowledges that every major brand goes through plateaus but says the strong ones overcome them. He and Jones concede that MySpace's online traffic had flattened last spring, user engagement was down, and its products lacked focus and vision. But with an ambitious rebranding now under way, they foresee a renewal in its fortunes.
MySpace is moving back to its original DNA: appealing to self-expressive, creative under-35-year-olds who are into games, music and movies. More than half of MySpace's estimated 100 million users are 25 and younger, according to market researcher comScore.
MySpace intends to appeal to that demographic with a mantra of "Discover and be discovered."
The rebranding is illustrated in design mockups splashed across the walls of a user-experience lab: Simple, clean pages with vibrant looks designed to draw artists, hard-core social-media users, brand managers and others. There is even talk of a new company logo.
MySpace has reinvented itself in several ways:
• New user home pages, released last month, are heavy on live personal content but without the clutter once associated with the original MySpace design.
• Forthcoming profiles for celebrities such as Lady Gaga and Angelina Jolie are easier to navigate and offer encyclopedic data on their subjects.
• Social-gaming firm Playdom is helping MySpace reinvigorate its gaming channel. This month, it launches Wild Ones, a shoot-'em-up already available on Facebook, on MySpace. More games, including ones exclusive to MySpace, are on the way.
• Through its constant tweets on Twitter, MySpace has developed into a heavy-duty entertainment-news service for music, celebrities and youth-oriented movies. Twitter and MySpace have also synched services, so updates on one service are automatically duplicated on the other.
MySpace is not only reinventing itself but recasting the competitive climate. "When we think about Twitter and Facebook, we don't think about competition as much as we think about partnership, distribution and synchronization," Hirschhorn said.
Yet can MySpace - once the undisputed king of social networking - remain relevant as a scaled-down Web protal for music and entertainment news? Industry analysts, including Debra Aho Williamson, aren't so sure. They say MySpace faces an obstacle course of competitors.
"For months we've heard about the company's plan to refocus on its historic roots in music and entertainment," said Williamson of market researcher eMarketer. "But the turnaround has been painfully slow, and this shakeup will only reinforce the perception that MySpace can't be fixed."
Facebook's dominance notwithstanding, MySpace and others can thrive in fragmented spaces, such as music and entertainment news, says Eric Mandl, head of large-cap tech banking at UBS.
MySpace remains a force in music. More than 13 million bands find it a vibrant tool to communicate with fans.
