MySpace platform not headed to SF — but office is
Rumors are swirling that MySpace will announce a platform for application developers, like Facebook's next week at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. But they're wrong, according to a source close to the company. There is a platform in the works, but it's not ready yet — delayed, like so many other MySpace tech projects. Instead, MySpace's Chris DeWolfe and News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch will be in town to make some announcement related to MySpace's instant-messaging client — ho-hum news — and, more interestingly, to open up a San Francisco office. Why the need to expand from MySpace's Beverly Hills digs?
Apparently, Web developers, like vampires, shun warmth and sunlight. Unable to find enough talented engineers in L.A., MySpace has decided to open up more fogbound digs to tap San Francisco's pool of snooty, entitled, arrogant Webheads. Welcome to San Francisco, Rupe! You can't really claim to run an Internet company until you've been sneered at by a 23-year-old developer, so enjoy it. To celebrate the move, the company will throw a shindig next week at the Museum of Modern Art, right in time to attract the crowd attending the Web 2.0 Summit.
One lingering question: Will Chris DeWolfe, Rupert Murdoch, and Wendi Deng — wife of Murdoch and, as chairwoman of MySpace China, DeWolfe's colleague — all attend the party together? [Editor's note: Awkwaaarrrd!]