Portland Area Native Becomes MySpace President

MySpace may no longer be the hottest social networking web site in the US, but it is still a major player online with 122 million unique visitors each month. That is enough to make MySpace one of the 25 most visited web sites in the world.

Now the cultural and technological icon is run by a Portland area son.

In April of 2009, Mike Jones was hired by MySpace to be Chief Operating Officer (COO). He was part of a new 3 person executive team tasked with turning the site around and returning it to dominance. That team was lead by CEO Owen VanNatta. On Wednesday, February 10th, Mr. VanNatta stepped down and Mike Jones was promoted to co-President, now the companies highest post.

Mike Jones is a native of Lake Oswego, a suburb just 10 miles south of Portland, Oregon. After graduating from Lake Oswego High School in 1993, Mike headed south to attend the University of Oregon in Eugene. Studying business at the states largest University, he was named Student Entrepreneur of the Year when he graduated in 1997.

Mike started and sold a successful business while in college and promptly started another soon after graduating. He found himself in L.A. where he grew his company to 100+ employees before selling his stake. He then started Userplane which was sold to AOL in 2006. AOL made mike a Vice President while keeping him on as CEO of Userplane. Mike resigned from AOL a few years later, starting a new company called Tsavo Media. Shortly after, he received the offer of a lifetime when he was asked to join MySpace as COO.

Ten months later he is running the show.