The Social

It's official: News Corp. has named former Facebook executive Owen Van Natta as MySpace's CEO, following reports on Thursday that an announcement was imminent. Van Natta's appointment is "effective immediately," a release from MySpace said.

Van Natta succeeds Chris DeWolfe, who stepped down from the post earlier this week, reportedly at the request of newly appointed News Corp. digital czar Jonathan Miller. DeWolfe will remain on the company's board.

"I'm thrilled to have the privilege to pilot MySpace in what is sure to be an incredibly exciting and rewarding next chapter for the business," Van Natta said in a statement. "I feel honored to build upon the immeasurable achievements of the MySpace founders and look forward to working with Jon and the MySpace team to meet the challenges and make the most of the opportunities before us."

Van Natta served as chief operating officer of Facebook before he was shifted--some would say demoted--to the position of chief revenue officer and vice president of operations. He left in February 2008 and later took the CEO position at social music start-up Playlist.

John Sykes, a Playlist board member and one of the original MTV co-founders, will take over Van Natta's CEO role there. Van Natta will continue to be an adviser to the start-up--which is interesting, since it technically competes with the MySpace Music service.

"Owen combines a deep understanding of social networking, a keen business sense, and the operational experience to guide MySpace through its next phase of growth. I'm confident his leadership will be an invaluable asset," Miller said in a statement. "I plan to work closely with Owen to shape our long-term vision around this vibrant community that already attracts more than 130 million users worldwide."

Facebook, Van Natta's old employer, has eclipsed MySpace in worldwide traffic with now more than 200 million active users.

Van Natta's a proven dealmaker. During his tenure as chief revenue officer, Facebook chalked up that whopping $240 million investment from Microsoft. But here's where he might be lacking: entertainment industry cred. With a background at Amazon, Facebook, and several tech start-ups, Van Natta--who will be based in Los Angeles at MySpace's headquarters--probably isn't on the Hollywood circuit. MySpace needs those entertainment connections, some of which come naturally with its News Corp. ownership, because it has a much sunnier future as a pop-culture hub than a social-networking tool.

That said, it's a good first sign that under Van Natta's watch, Playlist started inking deals with major record labels in order to stave off its legal troubles.

This post was expanded at 10:35 a.m. PT.

We can expect an announcement very soon that Owen Van Natta will be replacing Chris DeWolfe as CEO of MySpace, All Things Digital reported on Thursday afternoon.

Considering that AllThingsD's Kara Swisher has a very good track record of knowing Van Natta's whereabouts, we're going to take this one as solid. The announcement could come as early as Friday, Swisher wrote, and though there's no word on timing, we're guessing that it'll either be after the market closes or possibly held off until Monday.

Van Natta rose to the tech world's upper ranks as chief operating officer of Facebook, a position he took after a stint at Amazon.com. He left just more than a year ago, either because of internal disputes with CEO Mark Zuckerberg or because he saw no chance that he'd earn the top spot himself anytime soon (or both). He was then reportedly in the running for the head job at MySpace's new music service and apparently withdrew his candidacy.

Right now, he's the CEO of Project Playlist, one of the many "social music" start-ups that is technically a competitor to MySpace Music, and he has been inking deals with record labels to keep away its persistent legal problems.

DeWolfe's departure from MySpace was announced earlier this week as part of a management shake-up that was likely initiated by Jonathan Miller, the new digital boss at MySpace parent company News Corp. There will likely be other departures and new executives, but AllThingsD said they won't be announced quite yet.

Van Natta probably wasn't the only candidate under consideration: there were hints that News Corp. was also looking internally, possibly at sales and marketing executive Jeff Berman.

Either way, MySpace is in need of some fresh ideas, as it continues to slide into second place behind Facebook.

There's finally an end to the speculation over what former Facebook exec Owen Van Natta would do next: he's taken the job as CEO of a site called Project Playlist, according to Kara Swisher of AllThingsD.

He had already been an investor in the music discovery company, and there have been blog-circulated rumor about his new gig for several weeks now.

The move comes shortly after Van Natta withdrew his offer to take the CEO position at MySpace's new music venture. All signs now point to MTV exec Courtney Holt to take that job, but no formal announcement has been made.

AllThingsD confirms what many had figured: Van Natta, in his quest for a CEO position, wasn't interested in taking a job at a venture run by the News Corp.-owned MySpace. It's not quite a start-up, no matter how trendy its office space might be.

Start-up Project Playlist has snagged a hefty round of financing led by former AOL exec Bob Pittman's invested firm, Pilot Group--probably somewhere between $18 million and $20 million, Swisher wrote.

The New York-based Pilot Group stays low-key, but it already has a stake in a growing social-media site, Buzznet, which focuses on music and other pop-culture content and has an additional investment from Universal Music Group. Pilot Group was the majority owner of DailyCandy when the women's events newsletter site sold to Comcast for about $125 million earlier this year.

As for Project Playlist, it's a lot like Imeem or the ill-fated Muxtape: members can build playlists and embed them across the Web. The site was sued by the RIAA back in April. Like Muxtape, it's fairly stripped-down, but a ticker at the top of the page says that over 38 million playlists have been created.

Van Natta stepped down from his role at Facebook amid, naturally, plenty of rumors. He left the company in February as chief revenue officer, after having previously been chief operating officer, which some bloggers speculated was a demotion. When he left, he made it clear that he wanted a CEO post somewhere--which set off even more speculation that Van Natta had wanted Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's job, and left when it looked like there was no chance the young founder would step aside. That's unconfirmed, of course.

The issue with a company like Project Playlist? Aside from its RIAA woes, which are pretty much protocol in the music business, the "music discovery" niche is clogged beyond belief. There's Imeem, Pandora, iLike and its popular Facebook app, and Last.fm (owned by CBS Interactive, which publishes CNET News). Even Apple's iTunes now has its "Genius" discovery sidebar, and MySpace Music is a high-profile new entry in the field. Even Van Natta's old company, Facebook, is rumored to be interested in doing more when it comes to music.

"Discovery around music is exploding on the Internet," Van Natta told AllThingsD when he spoke to Swisher about his new gig. "And the company that does the best job of taking advantage of that is really going to be huge."

Well, let's hope he picked the right one.

Facebook announced on Tuesday that it has hired a new chief operating officer to replace the outgoing Owen Van Natta. Starting on March 24, veteran Google employee Sheryl Sandberg will take on the executive role at the social network.

For six years, Sandberg was vice president of global sales and operations at Google, where she helped to grow the company's AdWords and AdSense products, as well as its Google.org nonprofit division.

As part of her new job, according to a statement from the social-networking company, she will "be responsible for helping Facebook scale its operations and expand its presence globally," as well as "manage sales, marketing, business development, human resources, public policy, privacy, and communications."

Sandberg is also an alumna of both Harvard University's undergraduate college and Harvard Business School; Facebook famously got its start in dorm rooms at the elite Cambridge, Mass., institution.

Hiring an experienced Silicon Valley executive is no surprise on Facebook's part. Founder Mark Zuckerberg has yet to reach his 24th birthday, and the fast-growing company has run into some rocky patches over projects like the "Beacon" advertising campaign and members' ability to delete their profiles.

Some critics have suggested that in order for the company to stay on top of Silicon Valley, it would need more seasoned employees in high places.

Additionally, Sandberg's experience in building the Internet's most successful digital-advertising giant will be a valuable asset to Facebook, which is in the process of building a "social advertising" model that can boost the company's profits.

Social-media advertising's less-than-stellar reputation was solidified when Google co-founder Sergey Brin said the search giant's contract with News Corp.'s MySpace.com, Facebook's chief rival, had produced disappointing revenue results.

By pulling in a Google advertising veteran, Facebook likely hopes to bring new levels of legitimacy to its advertising strategy, boosting advertiser confidence and eventually profit margins.

"Sheryl is a great manager who will help scale Facebook's operations globally," Zuckerberg, to whom Sandberg will report, said in a statement. "She has relevant experience and a track record of scaling business operations and building new kinds of advertising networks. Sheryl understands Facebook's goal of connecting everyone in the world and is passionate about building a business that will enable us to realize this mission."

Sandberg, 38, is by no means the first Google staffer to defect to a high-profile post at Facebook. The company's chief financial officer is Gideon Yu, formerly of YouTube, and former Google Checkout czar Benjamin Ling is in charge of product marketing for the Facebook Platform developer initiative.

Sandberg and Zuckerberg, according to an article in The New York Times, met at a Christmas party last December. Negotiations between the two reportedly began with the help of venture capitalist Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners.

Sandberg had joined Google prior to the company's initial public offering, and before that was chief of staff for former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers when he was secretary of the treasury in former U.S. President Bill Clinton's administration.

This post was updated at 7:06 PM PT to reflect Facebook's comment.

Owen Van Natta, Facebook's chief revenue officer and vice president of operations, has announced his departure from the social network.

Van Natta told All Things D's Kara Swisher in an interview on Tuesday that he plans to seek a CEO position at another company--the identity of which he's not sure of yet. At Facebook, Van Natta had been chief operating officer until an executive reshuffling last summer placed him (some would say it was a demotion) into his present role. He had been at Facebook since September 2005, long before its meteoric rise in popularity last year.

This is a likely indicator that Facebook's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, just shy of his 24th birthday, will not step aside anytime soon as some critics have suggested. The 38-year-old Van Natta had been one of the most visible "adults" on Facebook's young team, having been Amazon.com's vice president of worldwide business and corporate development after founding its A9.com search site, and was likely looking to take the helm at the Palo Alto, Calif.-based site.

Facebook released a statement to the press on Tuesday: "Over the next few weeks, Owen Van Natta will be transitioning out of his role at Facebook to pursue other opportunities," the comment read. "As Chief Revenue Officer and previously Chief Operating Officer, he has been instrumental in building out the core infrastructure of the company and has been key to building Facebook's Microsoft relationship. He also recruited some great executives in sales and business development and has been an influential part of the management team. The company is very grateful for the contributions Owen has made to Facebook and looks forward to working with him again in the future."

Additionally, the statement continued, there will be an ongoing executive restructuring. "We will be actively adding key people across the company in the coming weeks and months. Facebook is also naming Matt Cohler, previously Vice President of Strategy and Operations, to Vice President of Product Management. Matt will be responsible for overseeing product development and working closely with the engineering organization at Facebook."