The owners of Myspace say they plan to relaunch the once-dominant social media platform, even though a previous attempt failed and cost them more than $150 million. Tim and Chris Vanderhook, co-founders of Viant Technology, confirmed the plans in a documentary film simply titled "Myspace," directed by Tommy Avalone.
According to a report by CNBC, the brothers appeared in the documentary and stated their intentions plainly. "We still own Myspace. We are stewards of the Myspace brand at this point, and 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." They did not outline a clear timeline for the rollout.
Myspace was co-founded in 2003 by Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe. At its peak in 2008, the platform drew 115 million visitors per month, making it the most popular social media website in the world at the time. The Vanderhook brothers purchased it in 2011. Their attempt to modernize the platform by building what they described as an entirely new Myspace ultimately failed. "It just became an onslaught of losses," Tim Vanderhook said in the documentary. "We lost a little over $150 million," Chris Vanderhook added.
The platform they would be entering today looks nothing like the one that existed when Myspace collapsed. Meta's Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, and Reddit now dominate the market. Those platforms are themselves under pressure, facing legal backlash and what analysts describe as growing digital fatigue among younger users. Millennials and Gen Z users are increasingly stepping back from social media, citing mental health concerns and a desire to go offline.
That shift is part of what the Vanderhook brothers appear to be counting on. The documentary frames a Myspace return as a potential antidote to algorithm-heavy platforms. Analysts are not dismissing the sentiment behind the idea, but they are cautious about its commercial prospects.
Kate Winick, a principal analyst at Forrester, told CNBC that the interest makes cultural sense. "Excitement about Myspace's relaunch reflects nostalgia for a more analog time, when algorithms were less dominant in our lives," Winick said. She also noted a broader shift in how people are choosing to connect online. "We're seeing this in recent moves by both brands and users towards smaller, more private social experiences that feel less built for the algorithm and more personal to the individual user, like the explosion of growth on Substack and private communities on Discord," Winick said.
Whether nostalgia alone can sustain a platform is a different question. Myspace would need to attract advertisers, hold user interest over time, and navigate a regulatory environment that has become increasingly hostile toward social media companies. It would also need to compete on features. Modern users have come to expect clean interfaces, seamless content discovery, and short-form video, none of which defined the original Myspace experience of customizable profiles and glittering layouts.
The platform's history of ownership instability has not helped. Since its founding, Myspace has passed through multiple owners and watched its advertiser base migrate to Facebook and other competitors. The 2013 relaunch, which attempted to rebuild the platform around music and entertainment, failed to gain traction.
The Vanderhook brothers have not said when the next attempt will happen, what form it will take, or how it will be funded.
