At one point sources said he was a "dark horse" candidate to replace outgoing MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe, but now MySpace ad sales and marketing head Jeff Berman is departing the News Corp. division entirely.
Following rumors and reports earlier Thursday, the announcement was made in a company blog post by Owen Van Natta, the former Facebook executive who ultimately did replace DeWolfe as CEO of MySpace earlier this year. Berman, who had previously been the head of MySpace's video division, had been at MySpace for about three and a half years.
MySpace has enlisted the services of media strategy firm Media Link to work on improving its advertising product, Van Natta's blog post added. Media Link is run by Wenda Harris Millard, the former sales exec from Yahoo and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.
A report earlier on Thursday had suggested that Millard would be hired by MySpace outright; that was erroneous, as it turns out.
Earlier this week, MySpace also formally confirmed rumors that it would be acquiring iLike, a social music service that's also supported by advertising--but not successfully enough to rake in real dollars, as its price tag was reportedly a paltry $20 million.