One of the original founders of MySpace, Tom Anderson, has admitted that he “choked” before Facebook realised the vision he had set out for his own social media network.

Anderson used his profile on Google’s latest foray into the social media jungle, Google+, to explain where it all went wrong for MySpace.

“My original vision for [MySpace] was that everything got better when it was social — so I tried to build all the super popular things used on the web (blogs, music, classifieds, events, photos) on top of MySpace’s social layer… But quickly I saw that it’s really hard to layer in social to features after the fact. At MySpace we had the luxury of having social first, and building the products on top of that layer. Then I choked and Facebook realised that vision.”

Anderson has been quick to lavish praise onto Google’s social media platform, which is still in its testing phase. “Google already has top-notch products in key categories – photos, videos, office productivity, blogs, Chrome, Android, maps and search. Can you start to see/imagine what Google+ does for Gmail? Picasa? YouTube? Not to mention search? The +1 system that Google now has control of (unlike Facebook Likes) can really influence and change the nature of their search.”

MySpace was last week sold to an advertising company and celebrity Justin Timberlake for $35 million by parent company News Corporation, which has had a difficult time with the website since buying it in 2005 for $580 million.

(Source: The Drum)

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