Myspace in a recent release stated that it would be laying off about 300 of its international workforce. There was also news of major restructuring across international offices in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Spain and Sweden which are said to be under review.
We have been tipped off today by a source close to myspace India stating that plans are in place to shut India operations. We contacted Deep Malhotra – Senior Director, Myspace India who declined to comment on the issue.
Our source updated us that a decision has been made internally to shut operations over the next 3 months and lay off staff in India. Though none of this is yet confirmed.
Myspace restructuring for India is completely driven by their International offices as Newscorp which bought Myspace some years ago has reported an $89 million loss this quarter in the division which includes MySpace.
We have covered the offline strategies of Myspace india before and have stated that its difficult to build online interaction using offline events. Whether or not the India operations are shutting do we do expect given the major restructuring and scaling down of operations that India would be worst hit. This is because not much has been achieved in terms of traction in the short stint that myspace india has been around in the market. And given the fact that lay offs are happening globally the markets with the least achievements are bound to suffer first.
Other SN portals like Ibibo, Bigadda and Desimartini etc. will soon meet the same fate as My Space….even Orkut is on a downhill