Myspace’s owners have signalled plans to relaunch the once-dominant social media platform, betting that nostalgia for a less algorithm-driven internet could create an opening in a crowded market.
Tim and Chris Vanderhook, co-founders of Viant Technology, said in the documentary Myspace that they still own the brand and intend to bring it back when the timing is right.
“We are going to relaunch Myspace. We’re just waiting for the right time to do it,” they said. “And if that one doesn’t work, we’ll do it again.”
Myspace was co-founded in 2003 by Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe and acquired by the Vanderhook brothers in 2011. The platform was once the world’s most popular social-media website, attracting 115 million visitors a month in 2008, before Facebook overtook it.
A previous attempt to modernise the platform in 2013 struggled amid changes in ownership and the loss of advertisers to Facebook. Tim Vanderhook described the result as “an onslaught of losses,” while Chris Vanderhook said the effort lost more than $150 million.
The brothers did not provide a timetable or further details for a new launch.
A return would place Myspace in a social-media market dominated by platforms including Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube and Reddit. The sector is also facing legal pressure, changing regulation and growing digital fatigue among users.
Kate Winick, a principal analyst at Forrester, said interest in a Myspace revival reflects nostalgia for a period when algorithms played a smaller role in people’s online lives.
She said users and brands have increasingly turned towards smaller and more private online spaces, pointing to growth on Substack and in private Discord communities.
However, Winick said a revived Myspace would need to avoid relying too heavily on its early-2000s identity. The platform’s old customisation-heavy interface may appeal to nostalgia, but it could be difficult to reconcile with the simpler experiences that younger users expect from TikTok and Instagram.
“If Myspace follows the traditional playbook, they’re simply the smallest game in town,” Winick said. “If they lean too hard into old Myspace, they’ll struggle to meet the expectations of a generation who are used to a much cleaner and simpler user experience.”
The platform will also need to identify an audience beyond the users who remember it most fondly. Winick said many millennials who used Myspace in its early years are now busy with careers and families, making them less likely to become active on another social platform.
She said Myspace would need to offer a meaningfully different product while attracting younger users and remaining relevant to older users, who are also important to advertisers.
Jamie MacEwan, a senior research analyst at Enders, said Myspace’s central challenge is not necessarily competing directly with Facebook or other large platforms. Instead, it must show that it can become a profitable advertising platform with an engaged audience.
“The question for Myspace isn’t will it eat Facebook’s lunch twenty years later, but can it relaunch as a small ads platform and still be profitable,” MacEwan said.
New social platforms can attract immediate interest but struggle to retain users. Winick cited Noplace, a Gen Z-focused text-based platform with a Myspace-style design that briefly reached the top of app-store rankings before falling from the most-downloaded list the following day.
Other newer platforms have also faced challenges sustaining activity after early growth. MacEwan said Myspace may have a better chance if it positions itself as an alternative to the algorithm-oriented feeds and addictive design features associated with larger networks.
That approach may not make Myspace the next dominant social platform. But its prospects may depend less on reclaiming its former scale than on creating a distinct, sustainable space for users and advertisers.
