In recent months, Facebook had discussions with former MySpace co-President and former MTV executive Jason Hirschhorn about a job spearheading the company’s outreach to media companies, according to several people familiar with the situation. While the …

In recent months, Facebook had discussions with former MySpace co-President and former MTV executive Jason Hirschhorn about a job spearheading the company’s outreach to media companies, according to several people familiar with the situation.

In recent months, Facebook had discussions with former MySpace co-President and former MTV executive Jason Hirschhorn about a job spearheading the company’s outreach to media companies, according to several people familiar with the situation.

MySpace co-president Jason Hirschhorn asked Diller, “What is journalism to you and should a guy like Mike Arrington be called out for something he never called himself?” Hirschhorn is talking about the fact that Arrington claims he’s not a …

The nine-person board of directors of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer will include well-known executives from television and online media once the troubled studio’s restructuring is complete. Fredric Reynolds, the former chief financial officer of CBS Corp., and Jason …

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch let a cat out of MySpace’s bag a little early, revealing that the company would announce the departure of co-president Jason Hirschhorn tomorrow. A representative for MySpace just sent us the following statement from News Corp. Chief Digital Officer Jon Miller on the matter:

We fully respect Jason’s decision to leave and his personal desire to return to New York.  As many people know, Jason is like family to me, and as expected, he’s done everything we asked of him and more.  We’re incredibly grateful for the passion and enthusiasm he brought to the company.  And as I know Jason agrees, Mike Jones has done an outstanding job leading MySpace into its next evolution and is the right person to take the reins.  There are no plans to bring in additional management.

There you have it. Perhaps more details will still be officially revealed tomorrow. But at least it’s been confirmed.

MySpace let us know that it’s hired marketing industry vet David Donegan as Senior Vice President of Marketing. He will oversee the company’s marketing, entertainment and events teams and strategies.

Donegan will be based in MySpace’s Beverly Hills office and will report to the company’s Co-President, Jason Hirschhorn.
 
"David’s deep experience in consumer brand marketing, interactive marketing, and entertainment make him a perfect fit for this role," says Hirschhorn. "I’m really looking forward to watching his creativity and leadership reinvigorate our brand and entertainment experiences."
 
"If there is one thing that is core to my marketing philosophy it’s the understanding that a brand must resonate with its audience, particularly since the rise of social media and digital marketing," said Donegan. "It’s so important for MySpace to embrace its brand heritage and return to the roots that enabled the company to grow into the household name it still is today. I’m excited for the opportunity to help further evolve the MySpace brand and create increasingly meaningful and impactful experiences for users."

In the past, Donegan has worked as the Managing Partner of Kastner & Partners Interactive where he was responsible for the overall strategy, implementation, and management of brand and product lines for clients that included Red Bull and Qualcomm.

Before that, he spent six years as the Director of Interactive Marketing for Red Bull where he oversaw key consumer and interactive marketing areas and effectively reorganized marketing activities to better focus on the youth market, created an interactive marketing department, directed the creation of award-winning content and digital campaigns, and utilized grassroots ambassador programs. 

Prior to working at Red Bull, he worked in entertainment production and development at NBC Universal and CBS. His work has won awards from Communication Arts, ADDYs, and I.D. Annual Design Review.

As some have pointed out, this is an opportune time for MySpace to step up to the plate, and gain back some of the social networking interest that has left it for Facebook in recent years. A lot of people are upset with Facebook right now, to say the least, and MySpace still has a very big user-base, and could look to capitalize.

MySpace has introduced a global events and calendar offering users new tools to create, find, share and manage events across the site and multiple social networks.

MySpace Events organizes a catalogue of pop culture events and recommends concerts, sports, nightlife and the arts, allowing users to purchase tickets to events.

"Our users already post millions of events to MySpace each year and the events platform is the next step in enabling them to discover, create, and socialize around the events that are most relevant to them," said Jason Hirschhorn, co-president of MySpace.

"MySpace Events allows users to find events of every size from a local concert to the next Lakers game to Jay-Z’s tour and then takes it a step further by providing the option to easily share the event and even purchase tickets."

Users events will show up in their MySpace calendar, including their Facebook events (via Social Plan’s previous Facebook Connect implementation). Users will also be able to share events on MySpace via the Stream, on Twitter, and tiny url.

"Ultimately our goal is to create a destination that allows users to manage their entire social calendar online through MySpace," said Marcus Womack, Director of Events and Ticketing for MySpace.

"Also, we’re providing artists with advanced tools to help connect with fans and promote their shows while conversely enabling fans to quickly and easily discover, share and purchase tickets to those shows."
 

Owen Van Natta, who only joined MySpace in April of last year, will no longer serve as its CEO.  Reports indicate that he’s in fact been fired, and MySpace has at least confirmed that Jason Hirschhorn and Mike Jones, who reported to Van Natta, are becoming co-presidents.

This series of developments comes as a big surprise.  Just one week ago, rumor had it that Hirschhorn might leave MySpace due to tension with Van Natta.  But according to Kara Swisher, News Corp. Chief Digital Officer Jon Miller then became involved, and after talking to all three men, wound up sacking the CEO.

So let’s discuss MySpace’s new co-presidents.  Before becoming MySpace’s chief product officer, Hirschhorn filled executive positions at both Sling Media and MTV.  Jones founded Userplane prior to becoming MySpace’s chief operating officer, and also worked for AOL following an acquisition.

Both men have done well at MySpace, too.  Miller stated with respect to Van Natta’s semi-replacements (remember the difference in titles), "Mike and Jason have demonstrated true leadership in their operational and product guidance, respectively, and I have the utmost confidence in both of them to lead MySpace into its next chapter."

Hirschhorn and Jones said, "We joined MySpace last April with very a specific set of goals in mind, and are anxious to continue working together to make those goals a reality.  This business is now pointed in the right direction, and we have a great team of employees that will continue to push MySpace closer to its potential as the place where people go to be discovered and to discover great content."

A high-ranking MySpace executive might be ready to depart, according to a new report.  Rumor has it that Chief Product Officer Jason Hirschhorn, who’s been with the company for less than a year, is making his way towards the exit.

This story appears to deserve some heavy disclaimers; since it began to spread, Hirschhorn wrote on his MySpace page, "i love fiction," and classified his mood as "amused."

He also linked to a clip of Philip Seymour Hoffman lecturing about gossip (as Father Flynn in the movie Doubt) from both his MySpace and Twitter accounts.

Still, more than a few people have indicated that the exec is parting ways with MySpace.  Jason Kincaid, who’s generally quite reliable, reported last night, "Jason Hirschhorn will soon be leaving the company, we’ve heard from multiple sources."

Perhaps it’s just a later conjecture – "the real problem may have been a lack of chemistry between Hirschhorn and his fellow executives" – to which Hirschhorn objects.

Anyway, there’s no word on exactly when Hirschhorn could leave MySpace, or who will replace him as Chief Product Officer (a position reporting to CEO Owen Van Natta) if he does.

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