Updated

Updated · The Source Magazine · Jul 31

MySpace Owners Reaffirm Relaunch Plans for 100 Million-User Network in New Documentary

Updated

Updated · The Source Magazine · Jul 31

MySpace Owners Reaffirm Relaunch Plans for 100 Million-User Network in New Documentary

Q: Could the promised MySpace comeback actually recover the millions of lost photos and songs from your forgotten childhood profile?

Probably not. A MySpace relaunch could restore access only to whatever data still exists on MySpace’s servers or in backups, and the strongest public evidence says a huge amount of older content is gone for good. MySpace acknowledged in 2019 that a server migration wiped out photos, videos and audio files uploaded more than three years earlier. Reports at the time said more than 50 million songs from about 14 million artists were lost, along with many user photos and videos. Earlier redesigns had also erased large amounts of blogs, comments and messages. Since then, users have continued to report broken images and dead music links, and the site has more recently been in a limited, read-only state. That means a comeback would not automatically recreate missing childhood profiles or recover erased songs. If your old account was successfully migrated during past redesigns, some photos or profile material may still be viewable through the current account system, often in archived sections such as old photo folders or “Mixes.” But if the content is not there now, there is no public sign that a relaunch alone would bring it back. The only realistic hope for truly “lost” material would be if MySpace or its owner still holds private backups it has never disclosed, or if outside archives or users’ own saved copies exist. Without that, a relaunch would be more likely to trade on nostalgia than to function as a full recovery tool for vanished photos and music.

3 articles · Updated · The Source Magazine · Jul 31

Chris and Tim Vanderhook said in a new documentary that they still plan to relaunch MySpace, though they gave no timetable beyond moving when the timing feels right.
Tom Anderson, the co-founder known as “Myspace Tom,” would not be part of any comeback, leaving the revival to owners tied to the platform since its 2011 sale.
More than 100 million users once used MySpace, and the relaunch talk quickly stirred demand for old photos, messages and the customizable profiles that defined its mid-2000s peak.
MySpace also remains tied to early online music discovery—artists including Arctic Monkeys, Calvin Harris and Lily Allen built audiences there before streaming dominated.
A revival would enter a far different market shaped by mobile apps, algorithms and short-form video, after MySpace changed hands from News Corp’s $580 million purchase in 2005 to a $35 million sale in 2011.