MySpace Co-Presidents Discuss Its Future

MySpace co-presidents Jason Hirschhorn and Mike Jones hosted Mashable for a long question-and-answer session at the social-networking site’s office in Beverly Hills. Highlights follow:

Hirschhorn on the future of MySpace:

(The strategy is based on the) pillars of broadcasting, discovery, self-expression, and making content a part of all those experiences. We want as many people here to be people who build, and who create, and who have top-notch engineering talent.

Jones on core metrics:

If someone’s inside the company, we want to give them complete transparency in regards to what they’re working on it, why they’re working on it, why it’s important, and if what they did actually came to a good effect.

Hirschhorn on whether MySpace is a social network or a destination:

You need to be a platform where your audience has a voice. I think a lot of people say “content portal” — it isn’t just about putting up channels that broadcast this stuff one-to-many. It’s about putting up a platform that’s totally accessible to anyone who creates content, whether it’s big media or not.

Jones on “going back to the roots of what made MySpace MySpace early on”:

I think at some point it lost its way, and we’re basically just tying it back to that. I don’t think it’s a decision of content site or social network — people are doing things that are very social within MySpace, and they’re doing things that are social in other environments, too. There’s a type of user, there’s a type of relationship that MySpace is really, really good at, there’s a type of environment around discovery that we’re really good at, and it’s about embellishing that.

Jones on competition:

I think there’s room for all of the players. I think at the end of the day, there’s not going to be a direct overlap saying, “This is the exact behavior on MySpace or Facebook or Twitter” — there’s always going to be some crossover. I don’t think it’s a winner-take-all because I don’t think it’s a singular behavior we’re all trying to capture.

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