5. MySpace - Five mobile social networks you need to follow

MySpace is dead. Long live MySpace? Five years after media giant News Corp. acquired the once-booming social network for $580 million, MySpace now lags far behind rivals Facebook and Twitter--co-founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe exited in April 2009, his replacement Owen Van Natta stepped down less than a year later, and in June 2010, co-president Jason Hirschhorn announced his resignation just four months after he and co-president Mike Jones took the reins. Despite the upheaval, News Corp. digital chief Jonathan Miller recently squashed rumors that MySpace is up for sale, dismissing reports as "fabrications"--he said plans instead call for a relaunch later this year, with an emphasis on multimedia content like music. 

What makes MySpace worth watching is its potential for reinvention--either News Corp. will resuscitate the brand or kill it off for good. No social network has ever successfully rebounded once it hit the skids (consider Friendster or Bebo, the latter sold by AOL for pennies on the dollar earlier this summer). But no other social network is owned by a company with the reach and scope of News Corp., either. Insider buzz indicate that plans call for an all-you-can-eat streaming subscription music service in collaboration with major labels Universal, Sony, Warner and EMI. MySpace is also exploring options to replace a $900 million search advertising deal with Google, set to expire in August--in addition to negotiating a new partnership with Google, NewsCorp. is reportedly in talks with Microsoft and Yahoo as well.

In the meantime, MySpace is attempting to improve its visibility on the mobile platform. In mid-May, it released new software development kits enabling developers to integrate social networking tools into their iPhone and Android applications. During a recent interview with FierceMobileContent, MySpace Mobile GM and VP of product and business development Bjorn Laurin said the service's userbase is increasingly mobile--interaction with the site via Android smartphones increased 230 percent over the last 12 months, and more than 30 percent of all MySpace traffic now originates via mobile device. "We're going to build our own mobile applications on these SDKs," Laurin said. "There's so much stuff you can do with this--the list is as long as possible." Stay tuned.