My Space concedes defeat in the race to be the Social media No 1

MySpace have called off their persuit of Facebook.

In an interview in the FT this morning,Owen Van Natta,Cheif Executive of the social networking group told the paper that

the company instead aimed to become an online hub for music and entertainment. “Facebook is not our competition,” he said. “We’re very focused on a different space.”

The paper adds that

The company has struck a deal with Apple’s iTunes store to allow its users to buy tracks without having to leave the MySpace site. It has integrated iLike, a music application company, and launched Dashboard, an interactive tool for bands and musicians, as well as compiling the largest catalogue of music videos on the web.

120 million users at Myspace

It was interesting to read this article in Silicon Valley insider which looks at the state of Myspace

Its new new CEO Owen Van Natta and digital head Jon Miller

are beginning to realize they have taken on a much bigger challenge than they initially thought, sources close to both executives tell us.

,the biggets seemingly that

MySpace made a lot of noise in public about its 120 milllion or so unique visitors, but the new team on the scene has discovered that "the true [user] engagement numbers are horrendous."

Ht-Adrian Monck

MY Space cedes some editorial control

Rather interestingly MySpace is to give its members control of some editorial aspects of the site.

According to FT.com

"MySpace, the social networking site owned by News Corp, is close to launching a news aggregation service that will allow its 160m members to rank news stories and headlines in order of importance and relevance.
The service, which could be announced as early as Thursday, effectively cedes editorial control of news selection to the MySpace user base and is the latest example of the company’s attempt to diversify into new areas. "