MySpace to Layoff Nearly 500

MySpace is slashing its workforce and may layoff as many as 500 employees as part of organizational restructuring.

MySpace CEO Mike Jones said the changes, which account for 47 percent of its workforce, according to CNBC, were necessary to help make the business profitable.

"Today's tough but necessary changes were taken in order to provide the company with a clear path for sustained growth and profitability. These changes were purely driven by issues related to our legacy business, and in no way reflect the performance of the new product," he said in the statement published in the AFP.

The new layoffs come in the wake of a 30 percent layoff of its workforce in June 2009, according to Time Magazine.

The company plans to outsource local ad sales and content through local partnerships in Europe and Australia, according to CNBC.

News Corp. bought MySpace for $580 million in 2005 but was overtaken by Facebook in 2008. Last October, in an effort to boost traffic the company shed much of its social media roots and introduced a newly designed website, logo and mission geared towards social entertainment for Gen Y'ers.

MySpace reported an 18 percent drop in visitors last September, as well as a 42.6 percent drop in minutes per visitor. By comparison, Internet usage as a whole has risen with the number of visitors increasing by 10 percent and time spent surfing up about three percent, according to PC World.
 

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