What is a struggling social network to do?

Before the emergence of Facebook, Myspace was once the 800 lb gorilla of social networks. While everyone knew that Facebook had been outpacing Myspace’s growth for quite some time, some observers felt that the Company had found its niche as a music centric social network.

But the headlines over the last few weeks have not been kind to the Los Angeles based Company as their CEO, Owen Van Natta was terminated two weeks ago, followed by a number of other high level executives following him out. A recent story on TechCrunch also outlined how an entire project team (5 people) at Myspace was recently let go. What was this project team tasked with? Just a complete re-design of the Myspace web site. The crazy part of the story is that one of the new co-Ceo's that replaced Van Natta (Mike Jones, who was the former COO) has decided to completely scrap the project team’s work, even though the team spent close to 9 months and significant capital in creating this new web site. All of this begs the question, why would a Company like Myspace spend a lot of money and the better part of a year on a project that they didn’t intend to use? Such is life at a Company when there is not a clear corporate strategy.

For the past two years, Myspace has been on a journey to “find itself” but more specifically, find a niche that would differentiate itself from Facebook. Because lets face it, the war is over, Facebook won a long time ago. So what is a struggling network to do? It’s clear that Myspace has been trying to differentiate itself through its close connection with music. But is that enough to kick-start the growth of the Myspace? Probably not, hence why all of the inner turmoil at the Company. But they do need a clearly articulated strategy that conveys to the user why they are different than Facebook…or why users should come to their social network as opposed to others.

It’s worth noting that I have never setup a profile on Myspace. My Friendster experienced traumatized me for several months after I closed it down and by the time I was considering a move to Myspace, Facebook was already the preferred destination. What would it take for someone like me to setup a profile on Myspace? Hard to say as I don’t really feel the need to join another social network at this point. But one thing seems clear at this point, Myspace is suffering from an identity crisis and need to do something to create a niche for themselves. If they want to be a music site, then they should fully commit to that plan and drastically change their marketing strategy. But they need to do something quickly, before the only people left on their site are affiliate marketers hoping you click on the latest “Acai berry diet” offer.