Thomas Anderson (born November 8, 1970)
is an American technology
entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones.
An entreprene ...
and co-founder of the
social networking
A social network is a social structure consisting of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), networks of Dyad (sociology), dyadic ties, and other Social relation, social interactions between actors. The social network per ...
website
Myspace
Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...
, which he founded in 2003 with
Chris DeWolfe
Chris DeWolfe (born ) is an American technology entrepreneur. He co-founded Myspace in 2003 and was its chief executive officer (CEO) until 2009. DeWolfe has been the CEO of Jam City, a video game developer, since he co-founded it in 2010.
E ...
.
He was later president of Myspace and a strategic adviser for the company.
Anderson is popularly known as "Tom from Myspace", "Myspace Tom", "Tom HSE" or "My friend, Tom" because he would automatically be assigned as the first "friend" of new Myspace users upon the creation of their profiles.
Early life
Anderson's father was an entrepreneur.
As a teenager at
San Pasqual High in
Escondido, California
Escondido (Spanish language, Spanish for "Hidden") is a city in San Diego County, California, United States. Located in the North County (San Diego area), North County region, it was incorporated in 1888, and is one of the oldest cities in San ...
, Anderson was a
computer hacker
A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who achieves goals and solves problems by non-standard means. The term has become associated in popular culture with a security hackersomeone with knowledge of bug (computing), bugs or exp ...
under the
pseudonym
A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's o ...
"Lord Flathead" (friends with
Bill Landreth), and prompted a
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
(FBI) raid after he hacked into a computer system at
Chase Manhattan Bank
JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., doing business as Chase, is an American national bank headquartered in New York City that constitutes the consumer and commercial banking subsidiary of the U.S. multinational banking and financial services holding ...
.
Anderson attended the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
, majoring in English and rhetoric, prior to becoming the lead singer of a band called Swank.
Anderson then lived in
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...
after graduation, before returning to the United States to study film at the
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...
.
Career
Anderson was a product tester and
copywriter
Copywriting is the act or occupation of writing text for the purpose of advertising or other forms of marketing. Copywriting is aimed at selling products or services. The product, called copy or sales copy, is written content that aims to incre ...
at XDrive, a digital storage company, in 2000, where he first met DeWolfe.
He initially joined XDrive as a product tester after answering a flyer advertisement, while still at film school and looking to earn extra money.
After XDrive went bankrupt in 2001, he and DeWolfe founded the
direct marketing
Direct marketing is a form of communicating an offer, where organizations communicate directly to a Target market, pre-selected customer and supply a method for a direct response. Among practitioners, it is also known as ''direct response ...
company ResponseBase.
They sold ResponseBase to
Brad Greenspan
Brad Greenspan is an internet entrepreneur best known for overseeing ''eUniverse''’s launch of Myspace.com in August 2003.
Greenspan founded ''eUniverse, Inc''. an internet company which in 1999 acquired ''CDUniverse.com'' with approximately 3 ...
's
eUniverse in late 2002.
With other eUniverse employees, Anderson set up the first pages of Myspace in August 2003. He founded the site partly as a reaction to
Friendster
Friendster was a social networking service originally based in Mountain View, California, founded by Jonathan Abrams and launched in March 2003.Eric Eldon, August 4, 2008.Friendster raises $20 million, nabs a Googler to be CEO" VentureBeat. ...
and its policy of blocking accounts that did not use real names.
Intermix Media
Intermix Media, Inc. ( AMX symbol: MIX; formerly eUniverse) is an American Internet marketing company that owned the MySpace social network.
The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, California and is a subsidiary of Fox Interactive Media, Inc ...
was then founded as the successor of eUniverse, and it was under Intermix that Myspace garnered the level of popularity for which it is notable. When Intermix Media and Myspace were sold to
News Corp
The second and current incarnation of News Corporation, doing business as News Corp, is an American mass media and publishing company headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The company was formed on ...
, Anderson became president of the company.
Myspace was sold to News Corp in 2005 for $580 million.
Following the News Corp acquisition, Anderson said: "Before
he acquisition I could do whatever I wanted. Now it takes more time to get people to agree on things. All the budget reviews and processes. That can be a pain. But it's not stopping us."
Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency ...
quoted an unnamed News Corp executive as saying: "Tom
ndersonwas responsible for the product, but ended up being a complete bottleneck on getting things done."
Anderson was replaced as president in April 2009 by News Corp;
by 2010, he was no longer the default friend on Myspace, and was replaced by a profile called "Today On MySpace", or "T.O.M."
In late May 2012, Anderson announced that he would be joining RocketFrog Interactive as an adviser to the 16-person
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
-based company, which created a Facebook app.
However, in a September 2014 interview, he explained that he is not interested in returning to his previous vocation.
"I'll never say 'never' because, more than anything, I like the idea that anything can happen. I don't know exactly where my life will lead. Adventure and the unknown has always been appealing to me."
Personal life
Anderson is active on other social media platforms, including
Facebook
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
and
Instagram
Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...
. Following an experience with photography at the 2011
Burning Man
Burning Man is a week-long large-scale desert event focused on "community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance" held annually in the Western United States. The event's name comes from its ceremony on the penultimate night of the event: the ...
festival, Anderson's interest in his own photography was piqued. In a September 2014 ''
ABC News ABC News most commonly refers to:
* ABC News (Australia), a national news service of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
* ABC News (United States), a news-gathering and broadcasting division of the American Broadcasting Company
ABC News may a ...
'' interview, Anderson credited friend and photographer
Trey Ratcliff for facilitating his skill development and explained: "I'm not necessarily trying to represent nature exactly. I'm trying to make something beautiful like a painter would." Anderson travels globally with friends to locations such as Thailand and Myanmar, where he primarily focuses upon landscape images.
Anderson also explained in September 2014 that his personal interests have always been diverse:
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.
References
External links
Tom Anderson's Guest DJ Project on KCRWInterview with Tom Anderson – Founder of Myspaceon ''
The Hour''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Anderson, Tom
1970 births
21st-century American businesspeople
American computer businesspeople
American Internet celebrities
American technology chief executives
American technology company founders
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Internet memes introduced in the 2000s
Living people
Myspace
People from Escondido, California
UCLA Film School alumni
UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni