Happy 21st birthday to Myspace.
On this day in 2003, the first social media platform was launched. It’s now a platform for music sharing.
Even alongside the launch of Facebook, Myspace overtook Google and Yahoo Mail in 2006 — becoming America’s most visited website, according to Hitwise data, TechRadar reported.
And for the rest of the decade, Myspace took over as the world’s biggest social networking site.
“It was like peoples’ brains had been turned inside out and whatever didn’t stick, dropped onto the page and was represented as a GIF,” said Lance Ulanoff, U.S. editor in chief of TechRadar.
One of Myspace’s most defining features was the ability to customize everything — including backgrounds and friends lists, according to CNET, and it introduced many to the world of coding.
The co-founders, Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe, sold MySpace to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation for $580 million in 2005, and that company sold it to the online advertising company Specific Media and Justin Timberlake in 2011, which later became the ad tech firm Viant, according to SlashGear.
Viant was bought by Time in 2016, which was acquired by Meredith Corporation at the end of 2017, according to The Guardian. Meredith then sold Myspace to Viant Technology LLC, which currently operates the platform, SlashGear said.
During its time under Timberlake, Myspace morphed from a social media platfrom and turned over a new leaf as a music discovery site, SlashGear reported.
A ghost town
The once booming online atmosphere has turned into a ghost town, according to The Guardian.
Despite the number of people on Myspace dwindling, a handful of devoted users remains. Kenneth Scalir is one of them, The Guardian reported. He takes a daily trip to the library or a cafe near his home in Sherman Oaks, Calif., to use Myspace.
“It has given me so much joy,” he said to The Guardian. “When I didn’t have a girlfriend or lovers, at least I had Myspace.”
Now, users gravitate more toward Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok or Snapchat.
“It’s almost like I’ve taken over a dead site,” Scalir said to The Guardian about how Myspace has transformed. “I think it’s funny. I’ll leave comments and messages for girls who haven’t been on there for years.”
