MUMBAI: Social networking site MySpace has said that it will be closing at least four offices outside the US and cut down 300 international positions as a part of its cost cutting excercise to narrow its territory coverage. The move comes a week after the company announced it would cut around 30 per cent of its US work force in a bid to become more efficient.
According to an AP report, MySpace chief executive Owen Van Natta said in a statement that just as in the US, MySpace’s staffing internationallly had become too big to be sustainable in current market conditions, this is one of the main resons of the downsize. Beverly Hills California based MySpace plans to trim its international work force to about 150 employees from the current 450 employees and said it will have to consult on the plan with international workers in some countries.
The company says the restructuring applies to all of its international units and will leave London, Berlin and Sydney as its primary international hubs. Offices in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Sweden and Spain will all be looked at for potential reductions. MySpace China and a joint venture in Japan will not be affected by the restructuring.
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Apparently, the News Corp. division has been trying to bring its staffing level more in line with its more popular rival, Facebook. Recent data from tracking firm comScore shows Facebook has caught up with MySpace in monthly US visitors for the first time. MySpace has had difficulty growing its user base, which stands at about 125 million worldwide. Meanwhile Facebook has said that its usage has doubled to more than 200 million in less than a year. Intrestingly, prior to joining MySpace, Natta served as the Chief Revenue Officer at Facebook until he left in February 2008.
