MySpace Facelifts COO+CPO: Michael Jones, Jason Hirschhorn
Fox Chief Digital Officer Jon Miller is a busy recruiter these days. After bringing in Owen Van Natta as new CEO, Michael Jones (formerly of Userplane which sold to Miller’s AOL, and recently Tsavo Agency) and Jason Hirschhorn (formerly President of Sling Media and CDO of MTV Networks) as COO and CPO (Chief Product Officer), respectively. Think “AOL + MTV [x Facebook] = New MySpace.” After the jump, insight into where this troika takes MySpace to innovate the social network/portal. Read more >>
Sabbaticalist: Tom Freston
How’s this for a final (yet not final) corporate act: September 5, 2006, 1,500+ Viacom employees crowded the corporate plaza to wish Tom Freston a goodbye when he was released from his contract by Sumner Redstone. Since that fateful send off, Freston has visited over 30 countries on what some would call a “$60M Sabbatical,” i.e., the amount of severance he received after serving 19 years at Viacom. Add to that, Freston became “non-committal” – not in the typical sense (he still helped causes and companies he admired), but more in the sense that he didn’t need a job as many came calling. He became “The Sabbaticalist.” Read more >>