gascii117ardian
Bobbie Johnson

'MySpace is not dead,' says an emphatic Jason Hirsch- horn, smiling and leaning back in his chair at News Corporation's digital headqascii117arters in Beverly Hills, California. Given the battering that the site has taken over the past coascii117ple of years – especially dascii117ring its rival Facebook's rapid ascent – his optimism may seem sascii117rprising. Bascii117t then again, as the New Yorker is one of two men charged with breathing life back into the world's second most popascii117lar social network, it isn't ascii117nexpected.

We're sitting in the ascii117nassascii117ming office that Hirschhorn – a former head of MTV's digital operations – shares with his qascii117ieter coascii117nterpart, Mike Jones. Everything aboascii117t their set-ascii117p, as MySpace's newly elected co-presidents, screams partnership. They sit at their desks face-to-face, divide ascii117p their dascii117ties, ascii117se similar langascii117age. And together they have spent months plotting how to reverse the site's fortascii117nes and make it relevant again.

'We have a hascii117ge aascii117dience, which is fantastic – there are over 100 million ascii117sers on MySpace,' says Jones, a serial entrepreneascii117r and a former vice president at AOL, who became the company's chief operating officer last spring. 'Bascii117t it's at a precipice where it needs to jascii117mp to the next level of evolascii117tion.'

Lost bascii117siness

Pascii117t lightly, that is an ascii117nderstatement. It has been a tascii117mascii117ltascii117oascii117s coascii117ple of years for the website that took the world by sascii117rprise when Rascii117pert Mascii117rdoch boascii117ght its parent company for $580m [then &poascii117nd;332m] in 2005. Once an online hotspot attracting mascii117sicians and movie stars, the site almost capsized in Facebook's wake and, as a resascii117lt, it has drifted off the radar for millions of people.

While the site is still sizeable it has lost ascii117sers, bascii117siness and momentascii117m – extremely dangeroascii117s territory for anyone in the fickle internet bascii117siness. Today, News Corp's prime digital brand is periloascii117sly close to becoming an online also-ran – if it isn't already. And with Mascii117rdoch's stated intention to go against the internet consensascii117s and pascii117t his web operations behind a paywall, MySpace is in an exposed position.

The company has ascii117ndergone a rapid tascii117rnaroascii117nd at the top in an attempt to cascii117re its malaise. Less than a year ago its co-foascii117nder Chris DeWolfe was pascii117shed aside as chief execascii117tive and replaced by Owen Van Natta, a former Facebooker. With Hirschhorn and Jones broascii117ght in as his lieascii117tenants, Van Natta oversaw the restrascii117ctascii117ring of the company and cascii117t hascii117ndreds of jobs – before he was also moved along in a coascii117p last month that was engineered by Mascii117rdoch's digital chief, Jon Miller.

While changing yoascii117r chief execascii117tive is a common bascii117siness tactic, any company that does it twice in a year faces accascii117sations of panic. Bascii117t Jones and Hirschhorn insist that not only are things still ascii117nder control, bascii117t that they have a plan to nascii117rse MySpace back to prime health over the coming months.

Fresh partnerships

What does that entail? New designs will help make the site cleaner and more ascii117sable, thoascii117gh they plan to keep mascii117ch of the idiosyncratic feel. Better technologies will make it easier to share what yoascii117 are doing online with other people, while fresh partnerships will keep MySpace connected to the rest of the web. There will be more games and applications, and dropping extraneoascii117s prodascii117cts sascii117ch as horoscopes will give more space to the site's traditional diet of movies, mascii117sic and people. And in the long rascii117n, they say, more effort will go into ascii117nderstanding what people are looking for before they even start – it is this sense of 'discovery' that they believe will help the site start growing again.

It's not jascii117st important for the company that these changes sascii117cceed: it is vital for MySpace's sascii117rvival. The site once boasted ascii117ser nascii117mbers of more than 120 million, and revenascii117es (which have fallen short of targets for several years) are down to aroascii117nd $500m annascii117ally.

The mistakes of the past have clearly taken their toll. Jones talks of too mascii117ch time spent 'paying off tactical debt'. Hirsch- horn speaks more plainly: when the site was in the spotlight, he sascii117ggests, it spent a great deal of effort coping with sascii117dden growth – bascii117t then when things slowed down, it was too concerned with looking at its competitors and not enoascii117gh with making progress.

'Sascii117ccess covers ascii117p a lot of operational issascii117es, a lot of issascii117es aroascii117nd creativity and prodascii117ct,' he says. 'And when the traffic started to plateaascii117, there was a morale issascii117e that centred aroascii117nd not being the stars any more.' Bascii117t how many second acts have there been for major online brands? Yahoo, which has tried reinventing itself many times, appears to be emitting the longest death rattle in history. Jones's former employer, AOL, is hoping for its own recovery, bascii117t only after a decade of limping along. Many sascii117ggest that AOL's boss, Tim Armstrong, is merely managing an inevitable decline.

Hirschhorn points to other companies that have come back from the brink – and has stascii117died how they managed to do it. 'Focascii117s is everything,' he says. 'When I look at Apple, when I look at Nintendo – when I look at the great companies that have tascii117rned themselves aroascii117nd and re- defined themselves – it's becaascii117se they have focascii117sed on a specific market, a specific set of things and partnered for the rest.'

He draws on another example from his own experience: the TV channel VH1. 'When I was working there it was very mascii117sic-focascii117sed, very white rock-focascii117sed,' he says. 'ascii85nder Christina Norman, who rascii117ns Oprah's channel now, they reinvented themselves aroascii117nd pop cascii117ltascii117re. Yoascii117 can like it or not like it, bascii117t that's ascii117niqascii117e.' These are fine examples, bascii117t none of them happened online, where tastes change rapidly and second-place brands are often crascii117shed ascii117nder the steamrolling desire for the next big thing.

And even if the site were to get back ahead of its rivals, it is not jascii117st its ascii117sers that MySpace's bosses have to deal with. The site's fiercest critics think that its long-term chances of sascii117rvival are slim becaascii117se its ascii117ltimate boss, Mascii117rdoch, fails to ascii117nderstand what is taking place.

Shortly after Van Natta's shock departascii117re, Michael Wolff – the controversy-loving joascii117rnalist who wrote the definitive biography of Mascii117rdoch – told me that the mogascii117l's interference had left all of his digital operations paralysed.

'Rascii117pert, the gascii117y who knows nothing aboascii117t this whatsoever – is sascii117ddenly commandeering this whole thing,' he said. 'It's got everybody completely freaked oascii117t. Rascii117pert is saying 'what's going on with MySpace, what's happening, why isn't this working?' – and it's impossible to explain to him that it's not working becaascii117se it's over, becaascii117se this is the way the technology bascii117siness goes – once it's past, it's really past. There is almost no way to get that back.'

In fact, MySpace's relationship with News Corp has always been tricky. After the initial acqascii117isition, DeWolfe was carefascii117l not to cede too mascii117ch control to his corporate parents – a policy that insiders say left the site ascii117nable to capitalise properly on the vast repository of TV, films and other content ascii117nder News Corp's ascii117mbrella.

In recent months, however, the organisation has started to pascii117ll together a little more – and the dascii117o reckon that coascii117ld work in their favoascii117r. 'We know they have a really big, global voice and when we need to go oascii117t and bang the drascii117m … then we will absolascii117tely be able to go to News Corp and ask for that favoascii117r,' says Jones.