It was once considered as Facebook’s biggest rival. Since then, MySpace has fallen from tech grace and changed hands three times. MySpace’s latest owner is Time Inc, which acquired the company after buying ad tech firm Viant.
Founded in 2003, MySpace gained so much following that it had even considered buying Facebook, at the time considered a promising rival. MySpace’s valuation has fallen considerably. In 2005, News Corp had bought it for half a billion dollars. In 2011, Viant Specific Media bought MySpace for $35m.
In Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America (2009), journalist Julia Angwin says that MySpace’s Chris deWolfe and Marc Zuckerberg were negotiating a merger in 2004. DeWolfe turned Zuckerberg down, as the latter was asking for $75m. Wrong decision, seeing how Facebook is now valued at $288bn.