In the video above, Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg ask newly appointed MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta and newly appointed News Corp. Chief Digital Officer Jonathan Miller some tough questions.
What makes this interview interesting is when Van Natta was asked what makes MySpace’s strengths and weaknesses are. Van Natta said that MySpace’s strength was that it is a lot more open and people on the network are a lot more interested in sharing information. But the reason why some people may be leaving MySpace for alternatives is because of an innovation issue.
Last week I wrote about how former Facebook co-founder Owen Van Natta will become the new MySpace CEO. Now it appears that News Corporation will be hiring former AOL executive Mike Jones as the COO of the social networking company as well.
“Michael’s operational insight and knowledge of the social media market will prove to be a valuable asset as we set out to evolve the MySpace product offering,” stated Jon Miller, Chief Digital Officer of News Corporation. “From a product perspective, there’s no better choice than Jason, who is highly regarded as an incredibly talented innovator, media executive and leader, all qualities I know will greatly benefit our team and our users.”
Miller is the former head of AOL which is where he most likely met Jones for the first time. I have a feeling that this won’t be the last time that News Corporation will poach executives from AOL. MySpace founders Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe are still negotiating other leadership roles within News Corporation.
News Corporation has also hired Jason Hirschhorn as the new Chief Product Officer of MySpace. Hirschhorn was President of Sling Media Group before attaining this position.
Chris DeWolfe is one of the MySpace creators and was the CEO as of yesterday. Now that he is out of the CEO position, there is a chance that former Facebook COO Owen Van Natta will be recruited. Supposedly Natta left Facebook because he wanted to be CEO, but Zuckerberg did not accept that. Sheryl Sandberg ended up replacing Natta.
Jon Miller is working on the details with Natta according to AllThingsD. News Corp. was not planning to have DeWolfe leave the company but then TechCrunch reported that the company was looking for a replacement. DeWolfe and Miller then started negotiating over the phone. Both MySpace founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson will end up on different roles within News Corp.
Below is the internal e-mail sent out to News Corp. (Fox Interactive Media) employees:
To FIM Employees:
I am writing to share the news that MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe will be stepping down from his executive role in the near future. He has agreed to serve as a strategic advisor to the Company and will remain on the board of MySpace China.
In addition, I am currently in discussions with MySpace President Tom Anderson regarding his role within the organization.
I want to take this opportunity to thank them both for their incredible contributions to the Company, and for pioneering one of the greatest social media revolutions of our time. I wish Chris nothing but the best in any new endeavors and, like many in this industry, am eager to witness his next innovations.
I understand the importance of having a dynamic, inspiring and innovative management team, and am dedicated to ensuring that MySpace continues to benefit from the highest levels of passion and enthusiasm.
I also want to thank everyone across FIM for giving me the opportunity to work with all of you. With MySpace, IGN, Photobucket, Fox Audience Network and our Digital Publishing Group, this is an exciting collective of properties and I’m enthusiastic about the opportunities that lie ahead.
I hope to meet and work closely with many of you over the weeks and months to come.
News Corporation has announced that they have hired former CEO of AOL, Jonathan F. Miller to head the company’s digital media properties. This includes MySpace.com, the social network that News Corp. acquired for $580 million in cash.
This reorganization is taking place at News Corp. President Peter Chernin is stepping down. Miller will also oversee IGN Entertainment, Photobucket, Hulu, and Jamba.
“Our focus moving forward is twofold: to enable our digital businesses to flourish as individual entities and to bolster the digital strategies of our core media properties by treating them as central to, and not separate from, the enterprise,” stated News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch. Miller had previously worked at Nickelodeon International and at NBA Entertainment.
Last summer, it was rumored that Jonathan Miller was the top choice for becoming the next CEO of Yahoo! before they chose Carol Bartz. However due to a non-compete agreement that Miller had with parent company of AOL, Time Warner, he was unable to be selected.
