#ThrowbackThursday: Myspace and the history of social networking

Have you been following our social media channels lately? If so, you’ll notice we like to add a #TechTuesday quiz question as a bit of fun for our followers. Following engagement with these questions, we’ve also decided to turn the answers to these questions into mini articles. If you haven’t read our first article about the computer that ran on water, you can check it out here. This post here is dedicated to the question: what popular social networking site was sold to News Corp for $580m? The answer, as you’ll no doubt see from the title of this article, is Myspace.

Myspace: the initial launch

Remember back to the days of Myspace? In its time, Myspace was certainly a hit. Launched in 2003, it quickly accumulated a high membership. In fact, in 2007, it was the largest social networking site with a presence across the globe with an estimated worth of $12b (cbsnews). During this time, it reached more than 100 million users per month. Functioning as a social networking site, Myspace allowed users to have their own mini website space, and was primarily used to share music, journals, pictures and subjects of interest with connected friends.

Acquisition by News Corp

The success of Myspace and the opportunities presented had already caught the attention of News Corp. In 2005, News Corp purchased Myspace for a total value of $580m. Myspace subsequently caught the interest of Google, also. The following year, tech giant Google signed a $900m deal to sell ads on Myspace (the guardian, 2011).

Decline and re-sale of Myspace

Competitor Facebook was mostly responsible for the rapid decline in Myspace. Facebook offered the same degree of social networking with additional functionality that made it an attractive option. Unfortunately, that did mean that Myspace was later sold at a fraction of the price originally paid. Sold for circa $35m to an online ad company, Myspace eventually started to fade from the minds of the modern population.

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