In September 2006, a lengthy article written by web journalist Trent Lapinski, “MySpace: The Business of Spam 2.0,” was published by the Silicon Valley gossip blog, Valleywag. The article recounted a detailed corporate history of MySpace, alleging that MySpace was not organically grown from Tom Anderson’s garage, but rather was a product developed by eUniverse aimed at overtaking Friendster, and that had initially gained popularity through an intensive mass internet campaign and not by word of mouth. Amongst other claims was the assertion that Tom Anderson had originally been hired as a copyeditor and his “founder” and “first friend” status was a public relations invention. Lapinski suggested that News Corp. had attempted to suppress the publication of the history by threatening his original publisher. In addition, Tom’s age on the site was lowered to “appeal” to younger users.
http://www.valleywag.com/tech/myspace/myspace-the-business-of-spam-20-exhaustive-edition-199924.php