Have you ever wondered what happened to the man who created Myspace?
Tech giants Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are perhaps among the most influential figures in the social media world. The likes of Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter) and WhatsApp are on virtually every smartphone in western world.
With so many apps to choose from it's easy to forget there was a simpler time when social media wasn't such a large part of our lives. The first communication network to reach a global audience was Myspace, launched in 2003.
For those who are too young to remember, Myspace wasn't just a talking platform but a cultural phenomenon, allowing users to share photos and music while chatting with each other in a whole new way. It was the brainchild of Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson – the latter of whom would always appear as your first friend on the platform, becoming known as 'Myspace Tom'.
While DeWolfe went on to head up Jam City – the powerhouse behind games like Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery – before co-founding another tech firm named PLAI Labs, the same can't be said for Anderson, who has faded into relative obscurity.
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He last posted to X three years ago, while his final image on Instagram was a meme shared in 2017. Although he occasionally uploads a surprising split-second Story, his life remains quite the mystery.
Tom Anderson appeared as everyone's first friend on the platformSo, what happened? When Myspace was sold to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp for £454m in 2005, Anderson was just 35 years old. He continued to work at the firm for another four years, before retiring at 40.
Anderson then chose to pursue personal passions over further entrepreneurial challenges. Perhaps surprisingly, this began at the Burning Man festival in 2011 where Tom discovered his interest in landscape photography, ABCNews reports.
His stunning snaps have since taken him all over the world from Los Angeles to the Philippines.
In a 2014 interview, he said: "If you knew me before Myspace, you'd probably thought I'd have been a scholar teaching philosophy in a university my whole life.
"If you met me before college, you'd probably have thought I'd be a musician for my entire life. I like change."
Nowadays, the one-time tech tycoon's bio reads: "Enjoying the good life / New Hobbies: Surfing, Architecture-Design, Photography, Golf." Occasionally, he pops online to chime into funny discussions and, in 2021, even announced that he was a 'SpaceX investor', but has otherwise laid very low.
However he has still retained a group of die-hard fans who regularly praise his work. In one recent thread, one wrote: "Success is about what you DON'T do Tom didn't use Myspace to: mess with elections, steal people's data, inflate his ego, increase hate speech. He just built something awesome that was a net positive for society."
Another added: "Myspace was the best social media out there. All these other networks and apps suck."
Have you got a story to tell? Get in touch, at lauren.haughey@reachplc.com
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