Myspace
The move comes less than two months after MySpace, a unit of Rupert Murdochs News Corp., hired former Facebook executive Owen Van Natta, 39, as its new chief executive.
It also comes a day after data from tracking firm comScore show Facebook has caught up with MySpace in monthly U.S. visitors for the first time.
“Simply put, our staffing levels were bloated and hindered our ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company,” Van Natta said in a statement.
The cuts amount to about 420 people, bringing the total number of MySpaces U.S. staff to 1,000. As of May, Facebook had about 850 employees worldwide, the vast majority in the United States.
MySpaces user base has stagnated at about 125 million worldwide users, while Facebook said its usage has doubled to more than 200 million in less than a year.
But until now, MySpace still had the edge among U.S. users. Numbers from comScore show that in May, MySpace and Facebook both had about 70 million users apiece in the United States.
MySpace, however, generates more revenue, according to Internet research firm eMarketer; it estimates that MySpace generated about $605 million in global advertising revenue last year, compared with $250 million for Facebook. MySpaces revenue is expected to shrink next year while Facebooks is seen as growing.
MySpace said the restructuring crosses all of its U.S. divisions.
Jonathan Miller, the former AOL chief executive hired as News Corp.s chief digital officer in early April, said MySpaces work force had grown “too big considering the realities of todays marketplace.”
The company gave no further comments.
The cuts follow the departure of MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe as CEO in April. Co-founder Tom Anderson, who is every account holders first friend and acts as its glitch fixer, is also in ongoing talks about taking a creative product role away from his day-to-day responsibilities.
Last month, Van Natta said he took the job at MySpace for the opportunity to build the site. He said MySpace, based in Beverly Hills, Calif., has distinguished itself from Facebook by allowing users to be “super-creative” in designing their pages.
News Corp. has said MySpace is unusual for a social-networking site in that it is profitable, but noted that ad revenue in the quarter through March fell 16 percent and costs rose due to last falls rollout of MySpace Music, a song-streaming joint venture with major recording companies.
The media companys “other” segment, which houses MySpace, posted a loss of $89 million in the quarter, much worse than the $7 million loss a year earlier.
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AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay in New York contributed to this report.