ALLEN Career Institute
Thomas Anderson (born November 8, 1970) is an American co-founder of the social networking website Myspace, which he founded in 2003 with Chris DeWolfe.He was later president of Myspace and a strategic adviser for the company until he left in 2009.Anderson is popularly known as “Tom from Myspace” because until 2010 he would automatically be assigned as the first “friend” of new Myspace users upon the creation of their profiles.
With other eUniverse employees, Anderson set up the first pages of Myspace in August 2003. He founded the site partly as a reaction to Friendster, and its policy of blocking accounts that did not use real names.Intermix Media was then founded as the successor of eUniverse, and it was under Intermix that Myspace garnered the level of popularity for which it is notable. When Intermix Media and Myspace were sold to News Corp, Anderson became president of the company.
Myspace was sold to News Corp in 2005 for $580 million.Following the News Corp acquisition, Anderson said: “Before [the acquisition], I could do whatever I wanted. Now it takes more time to get people to agree on things. All the budget reviews and processes. That can be a pain. But it’s not stopping us.”Reuters quoted an unnamed News Corp executive as saying: “Tom [Anderson] was responsible for the product but ended up being a complete bottleneck on getting things done.”Anderson was replaced as president in April 2009 by News Corp; by 2010, he was no longer the default friend on Myspace and was replaced by a profile called “Today On MySpace,” or “T.O.M.”
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