Chris DeWolfe is one of the co-creators of MySpace (along with Tom Anderson), of which he is also the former CEO.
Chris DeWolfe was born in 1966 and graduated from the University of Southern California. There is some controversy about the origins of MySpace, which is publicly presented as a homegrown enterprise developed by co-creator Tom Anderson. In reality, DeWolfe was involved with it from the beginning.
During the dotcom bubble, DeWolfe was the Vice President of Sales for Xdrive Technologies, an ad-supported service that provided users with online storage space to meet the growing needs of internet users in the days when web-based email had strict storage limits and ISPs did not always provide significant online storage space. DeWolfe was laid off in 2001 when the bubble burst, and set up the email marketing firm, ResponseBase, bringing Tom Anderson — an Xdrive copywriter — with him as an employee. ResponseBase, in turn, was bought out by eUniverse in 2002.
Shortly after the launch of pioneering social networking site Friendster, DeWolfe and other eUniverse employees discussed the possibilities of a similar site. MySpace, a heavily ad-supported service, offered free social networking and messaging, with more layout control than Friendster, and quickly attracted bands who were able to host samples of their music online — indeed, these days many band websites simply mirror MySpace content.
On April 22, 2009, News Corp. announced DeWolfe would step down as CEO and will be a strategic adviser to Myspace and serve on the board of MySpace China. The former Facebook executive Owen Van Natta replaced him.
Chris Dewolfe has been profiled in many major publications such as Fortune and BusinessWeek.
Earnings & Financial Data
|
Date |
Category |
Description |
Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
|
2013 |
Asset |
Series A investment at Woven Digital along with 8 investors |
$18,000,000 |