Owen Van Natta becomes MySpace Chief Executive

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Owen Van Natta becomes MySpace Chief Executive

April 24, 2009 – 8:05 pm – No Comment

After being the COO of Facebook Owen Van Natta has accepted the job as chief executive of MySpace, Facebook’s bitter rival.

arlier this week, the Wall Street Journal that MySpace co-founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe would be leaving the company after News Corp (NYSE: NWS), MySpace’s parent company, approached Van Natta about filling vacant executive positions. The company is in talks with co-founder Tom Anderson, currently president, about him taking a different role.

Van Natta left Palo Alto-based Facebook in early 2008 to become CEO of a music startup called Project Playlist. That company has named John Sykes, a co-founder of MTV and a Project Playlist board member, as CEO.

Facebook is still higher ranked in Alexa than MySpace and from what I can tell, more popular among college students. Since 2004, Facebook has allowed non-college students and others to join the social networking website and it has led to some frustration and anger, but with privacy policies and settings, I actually prefer Facebook.

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