It’s hard to say where exactly MySpace went wrong. Once the favorite social networking platform of you and your little 9th grade friends too, it has become the quintessential target for Internet ire. One day you were pimping out your animated background and snapping selfies in your parents’ bathroom, and the next you were denying you even had a MySpace account. It basically became the equivalent of admitting you use Hotmail.
But MySpace, sold for a paltry sum a little over a year ago, is planning to stage a massive comeback–and there’s one dude who’s helping to do that.
Wired reports that MySpace lead music editor and curator Scott Vener has been working hard to help rebrand the site’s tired image. He was tapped for the gig by Justin Timberlake, who’s a part owner in MySpace and who helped bring attention to the (actually pretty awesome) video released to outline the site’s new look.
Writes Wired:
Even if you don’t know Vener’s name, you might know his work — he’s the guy who picked the music for Entourage, How to Make It in America and90210. Now, he’s the man picking the music for Myspace. As lead music editor and curator of the social networking site, he’s charged with bringing music and musicians back into the fold of what was once the world’s dominant social networking site.
“We all know this is expected to fail,” Vener said in an e-mail to Wired, in which he discussed Myspace’s latest makeover. “With those low expectations comes a lot of freedom. Cool is what happens when you get creative and have nothing to lose.”
MySpace is now touting itself as a place for creators to connect with their fans, so it makes sense that Mr. Vener is a major part of that push.
We don’t envy Mr. Vener’s job one bit, though. Aside from Marissa Mayer, he might just have the hardest gig in tech.
