Tom Anderson

After retiring from the top executive post of ‘MySpace’ in 2009, Anderson has been busy as a travel photographer. He travels around the world and shares his photos, especially landscapes, from such places as Bhutan, Myanmar, Thailand, Maldives, Hawaii, Singapore, on his ‘Instagram’ and ‘Twitter’ accounts.

Anderson was born on November 8, 1970, in Santa Monica, California. His father was an entrepreneur. He studied at ‘San Pasqual High School’ in Escondido, California. During his high school years, he was a computer hacker and used the pseudonym, ‘Lord Flathead.’ He cracked the security of ‘Chase Manhattan Bank,’ which resulted in a raid from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), but he was not arrested as he was only 14 at that time.

He attended the ‘University of California – Berkeley’ and graduated in 1998 with a degree in English and Rhetoric. Following this, he joined the band, ‘Swank,’ as a lead vocalist. Anderson spent some time in Taiwan and joined the ‘University of California – Los Angeles’, after his return. In 2000, he obtained his second degree in ‘Critical Film Studies.’

In 2000, while studying at the University of California, he answered an advertisement and got a job as a product tester and copywriter at ‘XDrive,’ a digital storage company. Chris DeWolfe also worked for the same company, which later went bankrupt in 2001. Anderson and DeWolfe together founded a direct marketing company, ‘ResponseBase.’ In 2002, they sold this company to ‘eUniverse,’ the internet marketing company of Brad Greenspan.

In August 2003, Anderson began working with some ‘eUniverse’ employees and started the social networking site, ‘MySpace,’ which later became the first popular internet marketing company. He and DeWolfe developed the first few pages of ‘MySpace.’ The site was created with the aim of connecting the fans with their favorite bands and music. A user could make blogs, interactive profiles and publish posts on the website.

Anderson was the default friend on ‘MySpace,’ and would be assigned as first ‘Friend’ of any new ‘MySpace’ user. In the beginning, it was launched as a competition to ‘Friendster,’ a popular site during that time, which had started erasing fake profiles. With DeWolfe as chief executive officer and Anderson as its president, ‘MySpace’ was officially launched in January 2004.

Anderson founded an internet marketing company, ‘Intermix Media,’ and this company helped ‘MySpace’ gain immense popularity. It helped MySpace become one of the most prominent social networking websites in the US.

‘MySpace’ had (as compared to ‘Friendster’) less rules and restrictions. It became popular with music bands and fans. Some relatively unknown bands enjoyed breakout success because of ‘MySpace,’ which helped spread their music far quickly than the radio or concerts. Even well-known bands such as ‘Nine Inch Nails’ and ‘R.E.M.’ made their song debuts through this site. At one point in 2005, the web traffic statistics of ‘MySpace’ surpassed the most popular search engine, Google.