More MySpace Musical Chairs: Co-Founder Anderson Sticking Around; So Will Berman
After the bloodbath at MySpace yesterday, which we’ve confirmed did not include anyone in senior management, speculation about who among the top group will stay is rampant: Kara shakes down some sources and comes up with some names that are staying, and who is leaving:
—Cofounder Tom Anderson, who didn’t leave when Chris DeWolfe was ousted earlier this year, is still president, we’ve confirmed, despite reports that he has no title; that is likely to change but no one is pushing him out of MySpace. As Kara notes, “His historical knowledge and his tight relationship with the MySpace community make it important that he remain at the company.” Remains to be seen if that will stay true in another few months as MySpace goes in for complete retooling of their product. Tom’s everybody’s friend on MySpace, and undoing that may be, well, a tad difficult, so maybe they’ll let him hang around, if only for that…
SEE ALSO: MySpace Cuts U.S. Staff By Nearly 30 Percent
—Jeff Berman, MySpace’s president of sales and marketing, is staying, despite rumors to the contrary.Angela Courtin, SVP of marketing, will continue to work with him.
—Tom Andrus, SVP of product management under Anderson, is also staying, and will now report to the recently appointed Chief Product Ofiicer Jason Hirschhorn. Also, our friend Jason Oberfest, SVP of biz dev, and CTO Aber Whitcomb are staying as well.
—The only major departure is from FIM CFO Ed McKenna, who was also running finance at MySpace. Staci noted yesterday that along with MySpace layoffs, FIM (NYSE: NWS) was cutting its corporate staff. No further clarity on the future of FIM as an operating structure, yet.
The biggest task ahead for the remaining team, besides the product overhaul itself: renegotiating the search-ad deal with Google (NSDQ: GOOG), where the talks are just about to start now.
Posted In: Companies, News Corp., Fox, Fox Interactive Media, MySpace

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