Web Technology Guide

Archive for June, 2009

MySpace is considering closing down a number of offices around the world as it attempts to cut costs and recover from a slump that has left it trailing its rivals.

Senior executives at the social networking site are currently discussing the possibility of shutting down operations in California, Italy, France and Spain, sources have told the Guardian.

The closures – which could be announced as early as next week – could result in the loss of hundreds of jobs.

One office under threat is the company’s base in San Francisco, which only opened at the end of 2007 and is home to around 200 members of staff. It is not yet clear if those jobs would be cut as a result of such a shutdown, or whether some workers would be offered the option of relocating to MySpace’s headquarters in Los Angeles.

It is also expected to cut a number of jobs in its European offices as it struggles to meet revenue targets for advertising amid falling user numbers. Workers in Paris, Madrid and Rome could be affected, and 20 people are already believed to have been fired from MySpace UK in February, including the head of IT and head of facilities.

Guardian Technology revealed on Thursday that MySpace has seen falling user numbers and time spent on its properties in the UK and US, while rival sites including Facebook have continued to increase their audiences.

As a result, pressure has built on the company to regain its momentum – leading the site to bring in a new chief executive and undergo a series of redesigns to help woo back users who have deserted it.

Those changes have so far failed to halt the slump, however, and sources within the company say that Travis Katz – the London-based general manager of MySpace’s international division – has made a series of short-notice trips to the US to talk to senior executives about possible cutbacks.

He is believed to be returning again for further discussions on on Monday.

It is understood that the closure of offices could be announced as early as next week, leaving European staff concentrated in two offices in the UK and Germany.

MySpace UK declined to comment on Katz’s movements or the prospect of job cuts and office closures. Asked whether it could offer staff confidence in their jobs for the coming fortnight, a spokesperson declined to comment.

Rumours of job losses first began circulating earlier this week, when the Silicon Valley news blog TechCrunch reported that “massive layoffs” of up to 25% of the company’s workers were on the cards.

The cuts would come at a turbulent time for the website and its parent company, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which bought MySpace in 2005 in a surprise deal worth $580m.

In April the site’s co-founders, Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, were moved out of their jobs at the top of the company and replaced by Owen Van Natta, a former Facebook executive.

The moves, which took place suddenly, are thought to have been brought about by Jonathan Miller – the former head of AOL who is now Rupert Murdoch’s lieutenant for digital business.

The mood in the UK office now was described as “damp” by one source, who said that there was a realisation that Facebook had trumped it.

Sales staff were also struggling to fulfil their revenue targets due to the advertising downturn, putting extra pressure on the company as the falling number of users and time spent means it cannot command as much for adverts compared to growing rivals such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

The prospect of a $900m ad deal with Google running out next year will put extra pressure on the site.

Reaction on Twitter and blogs was fast and furious, quite literally, in some instances to the proposals coming out of the Digital Britain report.

I’ll be collecting reaction as it comes in live and highlighting different parts of the report, if you want to send a comment or a blog post along, feel free to send me a message on Twitter. I’m @kevglobal. This post will grow over time, and I’ll add things under the different headings as I go along.

After a while of watching the tweets flow in, the general impression I get is that the digitally savvy on Twitter were disappointed by the report. They thought it didn’t go far enough, that it focused on piracy and problems for media companies while lacking focus on internet users.

Mark Adams, the chair of Charity Citizens Online, wrote:

2mb is visionary, like a “Speaker of House of Commons” is visionary.

Rosena Angeline wrote:

the 50p a month levy per landline to pay for #digitalbritain is a tax — and did we get a vote on that? let me think … thanks #gordonbrown

Terence Eden sent me this message via Twitter:

Practically, the USO has to be low; but 2MB? University students for the last 10 years have got used to 100Mbps. 2MB is unambitious & feeble

Julian Kücklich, who works with video games here in London, said:

defines p2p file sharing as “a civil form of theft.” Why did they not just let the content industry write the whole thing?

He sent me this folllowup comment via Twitter:

Oh, wait, maybe they *did* let the content industry write the whole thing?

Education

Leon Cych, who describes himself on Twitter as a “web designer, coder, teacher, poet, artist, broadcaster, journalist, educationalist”, paid particular attention to the details in the report about education and said that they were “still too top down”. He also said:

References to Digital Skills in the Digital Britain Report – 245 – references to Digital Literacy – zero -

Manchester “writer, bon vivant and grumpy old man” Frank Collins also felt the report was wrong to leave out digital literacy:

Digital literacy is the most important aspect of this not illegal P2P file sharing That’s for the rights holders to sort out

Piracy

Much attention was paid to the goal of requiring internet service providers to cut illegal filesharing by 70%.

Brighton record producer Simon Thornton said simply of the goal: “Well that’s not gonna happen. Next!”

Frank Collins said, “Arguments over file sharing are muddy. ISPs won’t want to cut their customers off no matter what they’re illegally sharing.” Piracy was for the “media giants” to sort out, he said, adding, “Much piracy is because they use outmoded distribution patterns for films & music”.

Peter Marcus, a “PR man” in London, noted it wasn’t the ISPs who would be responsible but rather Ofcom if the reduction targets were met. He wrote, “Ofcom to trigger blocking/capping of repeat offenders after a year if no. of illegal filesharers not reduced by 70%”.

Landline levy

There was a lot of scepticism about the levy on landlines to support the roll out of broadband to underserved areas.

Simon Thornton said:

so the govt to add surcharge to a private service to create new fibre nets that then those private services will charge us money to use?

Software architect Dominic Sparks asked:

Why charge Phone customers for broadband improvements? -They are unrelated -They as may well put a tax on Mars Bars to fund it.

A Twitter user called cyberdoyle, who describes herself as a “Twitterita in quest to get Fibre to my Farm”, was a keen reader of the sections of the report looking at expanding access, especially to rural areas. She remained unimpressed and felt that piracy and the concerns about the continued viability of the media were a “smokescreen”. She said:

the real issue is they r gonna patch up an obsolete network and charge us to do

In a running commentary in 140 characters, she repeatedly challenged the report:

is thr anything in the report that benefits net users or is it all abt regulation & 4 industry?
not impressed, 2meg will enable bt to patch up obsolete instead of building new infrastructure 4 #digitalbritain

and in 2017 they will look at rural broadband?

The 50p digital levy doesn’t come in until 2010 – analysts expect the election b4 the budget so it may nevr C light of day

£150m from the digital levy equates to just 0.4% of the money put into Scottish banks

‘Stuff there to work with’

Technology journalist Bill Thompson said that the levy “might work”, and he seemed impressed with the final report, saying:

It is clear that the work done since the interim #digitalbritain report and this one has been substantial – there’s stuff here to work with.

Thompson has quickly written a very measured and largely positive response to the report on his blog. Unlike the comments on Twitter that saw an obsession with piracy, he thought the authors of the report resisted efforts from the music and movie industry to exert control over the internet. He had criticised the interim report but had praise for the final version:

The result, though far from perfect, offers a good basis for work on the detail of implementation and legislation, and there are clear signs that those who want to engage will be able to do so.

Thompson calls on those who already live in a fully networked world to help bring that to the rest of Britain:

There’s a glimpse of that world through the Digital Britain report, and it is one that those of us who already live a networked life need to clarify, share and work to build