MySpace Layoff Letter Adds Insult To Injury

MySpace capped off its recent 500-person layoffs with a goodbye letter thanking fired employees for their help during a "unique moment" in history.

An angry ex-staffer sent TechCrunch a copy of what is reportedly the "pink slip" note from MySpace CEO Mike Jones.

The missive concluded:

Although we can't continue on this journey together--I hope you will all stay connected with MySpace and know that your contribution to the business was a unique moment in time and that you participated in something that few have been part of in our industry.

That moment? Helping MySpace undergo a major design and prepare for a possible sale while, shortly after the site's makeover was complete, firing nearly fifty percent of staff--a move that has not encouraged ex-employees' benevolence towards their former company.

"The relaunch required an enormous amount of focus and hard work from everyone across the entire company," wrote Jones, in the photocopied letter.

Another person claiming to be a former MySpace employee penned a page-long grievance that had a different take:

Mr. Jones and his lieutenants knowingly *used* their employees, working them hard, making them give up time with their friends and families, knowing all along that no matter how hard they worked, and how successful their efforts, many of them would be rewarded with layoffs.

MySpace's continued losses have troubled parent company NewsCorp, who purchased the site in 2005 for $580 million dollars. MySpace accounted for $156 million in losses in the last quarter, a trend that COO Chase Carey called "not acceptable or sustainable."

"While the organizational changes were necessary in order to provide the company with a clear path for sustained growth and profitability, it was with a heavy heart that I came to this conclusion," Jones continued.

Despite relaunching as an entertainment site, "sustained growth and profitability" have eluded MySpace, whose slog towards collapse provides vivid contrast to Facebook's explosive growth.

Comments

[Hammerlock]

05:09 PM on 01/18/2011

Myspace: the geocities of social media.

Best thing it ever did was cost NewsCorp 600+M.

[americaisracist]

11:17 AM on 01/18/2011

"MySpace Layoff Letter Adds Insult To Injury" Who is insulted? the person who sent the letter to TechCrunch or the Huffpo Editor?

[John493]

01:46 AM on 01/17/2011

Myspace was always a pretty creepy site. Facebook became popular early on because they had pretty tight privacy controls over who could get to your info. Ironically that has completely been lost and may be the end of Facebook as well.

[SGMD1]

08:29 AM on 01/19/2011

Facebook isn't going anywhere because it wasn't the "pretty tight privacy controls" that resulted in it becoming popular in the first place.

[rcmfla]

06:46 PM on 01/16/2011

Looking at someone's MySpace page to me was like seeing virtual throw-up. It was a pathetic site and it confounds me how it ever caught on when there are so many more attractive alternatives one could use.

[Pandoras Folly]

11:04 AM on 01/17/2011

those people didn't have a good sense of taste.

[disgustedcitizen]

11:32 AM on 01/16/2011

This is oh, so familiar. Two years ago, the same thing happened at Sun Microsystems as they prepared for sale to Oracle. After nine years of hard work, I was laid off along with 4000 other workers.
It is a sad fact that the executives who oversaw the decline of the company, the executives that made the decisions that doomed the company, stay on while the people that did the actual work of building, selling and supporting the company's products lose their jobs. No wonder this country is in decline.

[JonB44]

09:27 PM on 01/18/2011

very well said!

[dbobsnodgrass]

08:34 AM on 01/16/2011

Myspace: the finite frontier.

[Carl Caroli]

07:36 AM on 01/16/2011

All employees are generally just numbers and canon fodder for corporate executives. They demand loyalty and return none. They demand profits and share little. And when they're done with you, they'll do their best to screw you out of whatever you thought you were working for.

[exigent]

09:28 AM on 01/17/2011

*waves a US flag*

Isn't it beautiful?

[militantlibrarian]

07:40 PM on 01/18/2011

Isn't capitalism wonderful? Employees should remain aware that they are interchangeable widgets for the most part.

[KennebunkportIndependent]

04:02 AM on 01/16/2011

If it is true that history repeats itself, the same will happen to Facebook.

AOL - Yahoo - MySpace were all once social internet bubbles that have since burst.  Yet somehow humanity continues to survive.

[DoinMyHomework]

01:12 AM on 01/16/2011

Looking forward to a similar fate for Fake News soon enough..

[KennebunkportIndependent]

04:03 AM on 01/16/2011

Sadly, the demand for lies, pap and smear from the great unwashed continues unabated.

[totallynext]

01:38 PM on 01/16/2011

nah - as coarse as this may sound - their viewership will nose drive in the next ten years - just sure demographics of their watching audience.

[Aldo Rodriguez]

01:16 AM on 01/18/2011

Just like the gossip rags and those so-called Entertainment programs and channels.
This country's hunger for 'junk news' is never fully satisfied.

[BannedInBoston]

01:07 AM on 01/16/2011

NewsCorp is owned by Rupert Murdoch. End of discussion....

[PlutocratsSuck]

12:05 AM on 01/16/2011

Corporations treat people like dirt. No shocker there.

[BannedInBoston]

01:04 AM on 01/16/2011

Boy, that is the truth. Use 'em and throw 'em away....

[southingtonian]

06:26 AM on 01/16/2011

Murdoch morlock

[demorick]

11:59 PM on 01/15/2011

Glad I don't use MySpace...I avoid anything owned by NewsCrap...

[Bmori]

11:37 PM on 01/15/2011

So what can myspace give me about a random artist that their facebook page can't? Unless they sign content exclusively, Nothing, except for messages from that Tom guy.
You can expect much if you work for Murdoch.

[Ted Bouklos]

10:18 AM on 01/18/2011

streaming music.

[KriTiKiT]

11:30 PM on 01/15/2011

just delete you MY space accounts... I bet at least 3 alternatives pop up in the wake of these firings with WAY better options.

[Allen Schatz]

11:24 PM on 01/15/2011

Being acquired by News Corp is where good ideas/companies go to die...

[TomInJax]

12:44 PM on 01/17/2011

Exactly. In 5 years the Wall Street Journal will only be a shell of it's former self.

[Hammerlock]

05:08 PM on 01/18/2011

You must be an optimist to give it 5 years.