April 24th, 2009
MySpace names Facebook VP Van Natta as CEO
News Corporation today announced the appointment of Owen Van Natta to the role of MySpace Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately.
Van Natta will be based in Los Angeles and report directly to Jonathan Miller, News Corporation’s CEO of Digital Media and Chief Digital Officer.
Van Natta, 39, previously served as Chief Revenue Officer and Vice President of Operations for Facebook, where he helped negotiate Facebook’s $240 million investment from Microsoft. Earlier, he served as Vice President of Worldwide Business and Corporate Development for Amazon.com, and was most recently the CEO of online music company Playlist, Inc.
News Corp.’s choice of Van Natta is a decidedly mixed one. While Van Natta certainly has the pedigree for the position, he presumably owns a significant part of Facebook, having been one of the earliest executives on board at the company.
Van Natta had previously said in interviews that he desired and was on the search for a CEO position, since Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Moreover, Van Natta joined Playlist just six months ago. He remains an advisor to the company.
Andrew J. Nusca is an associate editor for ZDNet and SmartPlanet.
See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
