New Baby, New Job, New Space

This seems to be a big week for me. After announcing our first kid is on the way, I’m also happy to announce that I’ve accepted the position of Director of Content Socialization at MySpace.Some of you may not know but I actually have a pretty long history with MySpace. When the service launched I was actually one of the first 3000 users to setup a profile. I can really remember the atmosphere back then, the almost feeding like frenzy so many of us went through. Of course, the concept of social networking and building online friends was somewhat new, but it was clear these platforms represented the future of communication and content distribution.It was also pretty clear to me that platforms like MySpace represented the future of online marketing, both for big brands and the scrappy upstarts. Almost right away I started helping companies market themselves in this new social landscape. Today that's pretty standard stuff, and it's usually called social media marketing or SMO. I have some great memories of helping those first brands and personalities launch profiles and build their own social network. I went on to share my experience and techniques in the book MySpace Marketing by QUE publishing.Of course a lot has changed between then and now. The social networking space has evolved so much it’s not even really called social networking anymore. Instead it has become more distributed, with people moving through a myriad of new services like micro-blogging and geo-location apps. Yet despite everything that is new and shiny today, MySpace still remains a huge force in the online social space. With this new role I'll help influence the product internally, but more importantly, I'll also help empower the millions of MySpace users to find and share our best content.I look forward to telling you more soon. In the meantime you can be my friend at www.myspace.com/seanpercival.You can see the official announcement from my new boss Angela Courtin on the MySpace Press room or read more on TechCrunch.