MySpace Tom Anderson Guilty of Faking his Age?
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The thirtysomething millionaire who co-founded the popular social networking site MySpace has been outed as an age-faker.
Newsweek magazine reports that Tom Anderson was lying about his age since launching the site in 2003.
Anderson’s MySpace profile lists his age as 32. But according to Newsweek, he will in fact turn 37 next week.
And that would have made him a 32-year-old when the site launched, not a 27-year-old wunderkind.
The magazine obtained driving licence information, voter registration and telephone service applications which showed Anderson’s birthday as November 8, 1970.
Anderson and co-founder Chris Dewolfe sold MySpace to Rupert Murdoch for $US580 million ($630 million) in 2005 and the pair continue to work for News Corporation. Earlier this month they were reported to have signed a new two-year deal that would see them each earn $US15 million.
Anderson is well known on MySpace. He is automatically added as a “friend” to every new MySpace member. He is listed as having more than 207 million MySpace friends.
Age faking – and name faking – is common on MySpace. Critics say the lack of age verification enables sexual predators to masquerade as teenagers and befriend real teens using the site.
While Anderson’s little white lie is not a serious transgression, the move gives some insight into the lengths the company is prepared to go to project the image of MySpace as a trendy youth hangout.
MySpace and Anderson steadfastly refused to comment on the age claims, which began circulating on the blogosphere last week.
The kerfuffle comes as a report this month from web monitoring firm Hitwise showed that MySpace may be experiencing a shift in the demographics of its membership brought about by a rise in popularity of Facebook.
“Compared to Facebook, MySpace attracts more middle-class Australian segments, such as ‘Family Room’ characterised as young families in growth corridors, and ‘Domestic Appliance’ who are generally, better-off families in core suburban and rural fringe locations.” the Hitwise report said.
MySpace Australia vigorously disputes both the methodology and conclusion reached in the report, refuting the suggestion that younger members are deserting the site.
In a comment typical of the reaction from the blogosphere to the revelation, CNET’s Caroline McCarthy said “apparently he was either self-conscious or sketched out (or both) about being in his 30s when he founded a youth-oriented social network”.
Michael Arrington from TechCrunch was more scathing: “If you can’t trust the founders to be truthful in their profiles, how can you trust what anyone says on the site.”
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