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gossip roundup
I Want To Cry Justin Timberlake And Jessica Biel A River Of Domestic Empathy
Justin Timberlake, Jessica Biel, and Gary Coleman are all having relationship issues. Megan Fox: macking on Zac Efron and smack-talking Michael Bay. Liza's mob problems, Twilight's freak fanbase, and celebrity cocaine usage! Presenting your pre-Holiday Friday Gossip Roundup: More » -
cubicle culture
How MySpace Humiliates Fired Workers
MySpace's CEO purportedly keeps his body pretty tight. But he should lay off the weight obsession at work. Owen Van Natta said MySpace was "bloated" when he laid off 400 workers; now they're reportedly called "fat" to their faces. More » -
class war
MySpace Exec Gets $500K to Sit at Home While 300 Laid Off
MySpace today confirmed the rumors it will lay off 300 international staff, on top of 400 U.S. layoffs last week. The social network also shoved aside purported co-founder Tom Anderson, who has a new gig: NOT going to the office. More » -
breaking
MySpace Lays Off 400
Two months after taking over as CEO, Owen Van Natta is laying off 30 percent of MySpace employees. His outlook remains bleak; when was the last time you heard a CEO call his company "bloated" in a press release? More » -
valleywag
New MySpace Regime Lowers Expectations
MySpace chief Own Van Natta is a consummate dealmaker; at Facebook he helped sweet talk Microsoft into a critical ad buy. MySpace is a trickier case: insiders at the social network are spreading word it faces "horrendous" user disengagement. More » -
media wars
News Corp. Would Like to Renew Its MySpace Deal with 'Parasite' Google
News Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch has referred to Google "stealing" or "taking" his copyright. His Wall Street Journal lieutenant Robert Thomson has likened the company to a "parasite or tech tapeworm." But now News Corp. needs to renegotiate a lucrative MySpace ad deal with Google. Whoops. More » -
housekeeping
Valleywag: An Instruction Manual
Dear Ryan:
As I head to NBC to run its Bay Area site, I'm leaving you one Silicon Valley gossip blog, used but in good condition. A few thoughts on how to keep it that way. More » -
servicey
How Valleywag Got MySpace to Drop Its Sony Ban
Sony Pictures employees can now waste their time on MySpace again, thanks to Valleywag. (You're welcome.) Here's the tale, from inside Sony's Internet operations, of how our story got the ban lifted. More » -
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breakdowns
Sony Moviemakers Banned from MySpace
A tipster tells us that when Sony employees in L.A. try to log onto MySpace, "it directs you to google.com." Bizarrely, Sony's IT staff is saying it's MySpace's fault. More » -
Shut Up, Twitter
Finally, Twitter Learns When to Shut Up
The Twittersphere is up in arms over a move the message-broadcasting service made to make its site a bit less noisy: You can no longer easily eavesdrop on conversations with strangers. Hurrah!
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the rich
Prince Marcus von Asshole's Gallery of Glory
Yesterday, asshole expert Jared Paul Stern identified German "Prince" Marcus von Anhalt as the "World's Richest Asshole." Like all noblemen, the Prince has a Myspace page: More » -
crime
MySpace gossip about an affair allegedly ended in a Staten Island murder.
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geek love
Love in the Age of SMS
Things were simpler when the only medium for asking someone out was the telephone. Text messaging, Facebook, Twitter and MySpace have complicated romance, if not ruined it, the Washington Post reports. More » -
Kari ferrell
Hipster Grifter Only Had Like Three Good Lines, Besides 'Hot Mom-Job'
Hipster Grifter Kari Ferrell sounds really clever until you notice she just re-used a few key lines over and over, via email. Uh, outrage! New email evidence concerns her imaginary beard-based coffee table book: More » -
valleywag
The Global Village Is Too Poor for YouTube
Just a few years ago, venture capitalists pushed Internet startups to conquer every last corner of the world. Now they're asking why they don't just pull the plug on the Third World. More » -
hires
MySpace Job Is Sweet Revenge for Ex-Facebook Exec
Owen Van Natta, Facebook's former COO, is officially taking over MySpace, News Corp.'s social network. With its user numbers stagnant, MySpace desperately needs a restart. Is Van Natta the guy to do it? More » -
geocities
The Billion-Dollar Blackhole of Social Media
Will anyone miss GeoCities, the antiquated homepage service Yahoo bought for $3.5 billion in 1999, and then left to rot? Venture capitalist Fred Wilson will — he hasn't seen that kind of payday in ages. More » -
blowhards
Jason Calacanis Nominates Himself MySpace's Captain Obvious
The most amusing thing about fameballs is when they don't realize their balls have stopped rolling. Such is bulldog entrepreneur Jason Calacanis's lot, as he desperately tries to pose as MySpace's next CEO. More » -
hires
Should MySpace Hire the Hero or the Zero?
Former Facebook COO Owen Van Natta is the frontrunner to replace Chris DeWolfe as MySpace CEO. Blog lordling Jason Calacanis has been jokingly nominated for the News Corp. gig. Here's who should get it. More » -
exits
Friendship with Boss's Wife Can't Save MySpace CEO
Sucking up to the CEO's wife is usually a wise move. But did it doom MySpace chief Chris DeWolfe? More » -
Kari ferrell
The Hipster Grifter's Myspace Page: 'Sylvester Stabone'
The magical internet has coughed up a cached version of hipster grifter Kari Ferrell's painstakingly quirky Myspace page. And Kari Ferrell detritus has already hit Ebay! Click through for more aggressisexual grifter crapola.
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palintology
Bristol Palin's MySpace File
Palin's Deceptions, a meticulous, obsessive blog devoted to proving that Sarah Palin is not the mother of Trigg, has published an exhaustive "analysis" of Bristol Palin's MySpace messages going back to 2005.
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privacy
Your MySpace Rant Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record
If you write something on the Internet, you can't later claim it was private. That's the surprisingly commonsensical ruling in the case of Cynthia Moreno, a California college student who sued her hometown newspaper. More » -
Shut Up, MySpace
Courtney Love in MySpace Libel Suit
A fashion designer has sued wacky-mess rocker Courtney Love for libel on MySpace. Love's response? Going on a blabby Twitter rampage and accusing Lindsay Lohan of stealing drugs.
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hires
AOL Outcast Jon Miller to Join News Corp.'s Soap Opera in Progress
Rupert Murdoch's media empire continues its turmoil after the announcement of COO Peter Chernin's departure. The newest player: Former AOL CEO Jon Miller, who's widely expected to take the top digital job there. More » -
crime
Teen Murder Suspect John Katehis: The Complete Gallery
The Satanic Myspace page of 16-year-old John Katehis, who confessed to murdering newsman George Weber, has already been deleted. We've salvaged quite a few of his photos. Here, the complete, creepy collection: More » -
exclusive
Teen Slay Suspect's Satanic MySpace Page
The 16-year-old who's confessed to killing radio newsman George Weber — identified as John Katehis by the New York Post — used MySpace to profess his love for sex, violence, knives and Satanism. More » -
rumormonger
Is Chris DeWolfe on His Way Out at MySpace?
Bad days for MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe: A tell-all book about the lowbrow social network's shady origins is hitting the shelves as a Wall Street analyst predicts layoffs. How long will he last? More » -
Media Crack
Please Buy the NYT Co's Jet
In your blustery Wednesday media column: the newspaper industry burns, News Corp can't handle hardcore music, NPR needs more black people, and the NYT sells a jet: More » -
overshares
Meathead Cop Learns Not To Give Police Brutality Advice Online
Meet Officer Vaughan Ettienne, the bodybuilder who learned the hard way you shouldn't write like a thug online, or a jury might just suspect you of mistreating a suspect. More » -
leaks
MySpace Memo: Three Top Execs Leaving
Amit Kapur, the 27-year-old No. 2 executive at MySpace, is leaving, according to a memo from MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe. It looks like he's planning a startup: He's taking two executives with him. More » -
myspace
Wendi Deng Murdoch's MySpace Problem
A tipster tells us Wendi Deng dropped by MySpace headquarters with a friend on Friday. What is Mrs. Rupert Murdoch up to at the News Corp.-owned social network? More » -
rumormonger
Intel's Secret Geekfest to Kill the iPhone
Apple's got the iPhone. Google's got Android. Even Amazon has the Kindle. After flirting several times with the ooohs-and-aaaahs gadget business, Intel convened a brain trust last week to work on their own mobile phone. More » -
parties
Why Skipping Davos Is This Year's True Status Symbol
How a conference dies: The savvy crowd stays away, while eager second-raters fill their seats. Google cofounder Sergey Brin is skipping Davos. Meanwhile, MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe fought with a colleague to go amid layoffs. More » -
celebritards
MySpace plague Tila Tequila smooches Yahoo CEO spawn
What is it, precisely, that is so annoying about the on-off romance between MySpace-MTV fameball Tila Tequila and Courtenay Semel, the daughter of former Yahoo and Warner Bros. bossman Terry Semel? -
advertising
Your Facebook Page Increasingly Undesirable
Sites like Myspace and Facebook, which are technically called "social networking" sites but are better known as "Lisa is...OMG are you watching The Hills right now? Craziness" ego-projection mechanisms for creating alternate realities, are suffering just like everyone else during this recession. Not traffic-wise; humans' desire to keep the outside world appraised of their moment-to-moment "status" only continues to increase. But money-wise, things are not looking quite so wildly engrossing: More » -
DailyFill
MySpace launches another doomed gossip site
The celebrity-industrial complex will expand, must expand, can't help but expand until every site on the Web features gossipy famous-people headlines. The latest entrant: DailyFill, MySpace's slapdash copycat celebrity-news site. -
the internet
Why MySpace Is Worthless
"If you’re on MySpace now, you’re a [expletive] cretin. And you’re not only a [expletive] cretin, but you’re poor." [Michael Wolff] -
ashley dupre
Ashley Dupre, Your MySpace Friends Will Lead You To Ruin
After we went to all the trouble of offering Spitzer hooker Ashley Dupre seven—seven!—different career choices yesterday, what does she do? She goes and tells Diane Sawyer, "I want to go after my music and do what I love. And not lose track of who I am on the way. I'm trying to pursue my music. I'm still living for it. I'm not gonna give up my dream. I'm not going to change. I'm not going to let this change who I am. And what I love." All of those short declarative sentences do not change the fact that your song "All We Want" is just the sort of generic R&B bullshit blathering that has already largely destroyed our nation's airwaves. We say this as a friend! Regrettably, Ashley is listening to her other friends: her MySpace friends. Like Whitney Houston, and "Fin" from Williamsburg:
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online advertising
Why Facebook can't sell ads
Facebook has made a bold bet on being the next Google. The problem is that it may have made the wrong bet. The Wall Street Journal has taken tardy notice of Facebook's "engagement ads," first launched in August. They are not an easy sell; they require advertisers to come up with some compelling "action" for Facebook users to take, which will then be shared with their friends, and thus spread virally through the social network. And yet the chief way Facebook hopes to sell these ads is through an automated sign-up process. Facebook has a direct-sales team, but its top management lacks experience in managing large sales teams. Which may explain why MySpace, which has built a large salesforce by recruiting heavily from Yahoo, has 15.9 percent of the display-ad market, while Facebook has a mere 1.1 percent. (Chart by WSJ/ComScore)






























