Facebook to share Myspace’s content

In interviews with the Telegraph, Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg and Myspace’s CEO Owen Van Natta have confirmed that Myspace is going to defocus from social networking and try to become a media hub, but one that shares it’s content with Facebook. Myspace has effectively lost the battle for the dominant position in the social network market, having dropped from owning 60% of the UK’s social traffic last September to just 30% this year, comapred to Facebook’s steady growth in both the US and UK. “Facebook is focusing on building the best technology which helps people share content, while at MySpace they are focusing on more a content-led strategy,” said Sheryl Sandberg. “We would like to have their content, as we already do with many other sites, shared across our network because it is good for our users.”

Well yes; if they’ll just give you the only thing they have left that would make them capable of competing, that would be good for you…

“Partnerships are going to be a big part of our strategy moving forward as a lot of value can be derived from them. Facebook is about core communications with your friendship network, whereas MySpace is about congregating around popular content with people who share your interests.” commented Van Natta. But if Myspace’s content is all available on Facebook, why bother visiting Myspace at all? Unless the revenue sharing deal on this is very heavily in Myspace favour, I can’t see this as another pail of grease on the slippery slope Myspace is sliding down.

For a lighter take on the competition between the social networks, see below (ironically hosted on myspace):

Social Networking Wars

Enes | MySpace Video