Tyler Walicek had dug-up into MySpace’s shady past and came up with an extremely interesting post about it on his blog (the blog now seem to have been deleted at BlogSpot).

I can’t say how long will it remain at various search-engine caches, so here is the complete text of his post.

I’ve always been fascinated with MySpace. It’s a writhing, twisted cesspool of Internet slang and <FONT COLOR=#FF751A”>terrible code.<F/ONT> But it’s also an outlet for millions of people, mostly teens, who, someway, somehow, through all the malformed CSS and hideous pages, are creating an identity for themselves. They decorate their profiles with YouTube Clips, oversized text, and pictures of their favorite rappers. Their pages are 5000 pixels wide and impossible to read. And they love it.

But there’s more to MySpace than just users with questionable web design skills. The site itself has something of a shady history. With a little bit of research, I’ve managed to piece together a timeline for how the site actually came about.

Most users picture MySpace as being designed, coded, and singlehandedly run by the famous Tom Anderson. In fact, it’s the product of a large corporation and not the garage project many people expect. The story begins in the late 90s, a crazy time for the Internet.

First, a little background on the people and corporations behind MySpace.

THE CHARACTERS

Chris DeWolfe
Currently MySpace’s CEO. Worked for Xdrive with Tom Anderson until he was fired in 2001. Went on to found ResponseBase LLC with Anderson, which was acquired by Intermix Media. ResponseBase LLC soon became MySpace LLC.

Tom Anderson
The current President/Co-Owner and public face of MySpace, “Tom” worked for Xdrive with DeWolfe. During this time, it is rumored that he ran a pornography site that brought in an extra $5000 a month, although this is unconfirmed.

Andrew and Tiffany Wiederhorn
Andrew Wiederhorn ran Fog Cutter Capital Group, an investment group. He was incarcerated for pension and tax fraud in August 2004.
Tiffany Wiederhorn was an employee of Intermix Media, Inc. She held shares in both Intermix and Fog Cutter.

Intermix Media, Inc. (formerly eUniverse)
A corporation that offered a network of entertainment sites, products like printer ink and skin care items, and gratuitous amounts of spyware. They were responsible for the advertisements on the peer to peer client Kazaa, as well as adware and browser hijackers. It had a very close relationship with Sharman Networks, Ltd., the company that owns Kazaa.

Xdrive
A dot-com company that provided free hosting to users. DeWolfe and Anderson were employed in the marketing department working on the newsletter Intelligent X until 2001. It was later purchased by AOL.

ResponseBase LLC
After being fired from Xdrive, DeWolfe founded ResponseBase with Anderson and other Xdrive employees. Using Xdrive’s 8 million person subscriber list, they began published sending a newsletter very similar to Intelligent X. ResponseBase LLC was acquired by Intermix Media after only a year of operation. It later became MySpace LLC.

Fog Cutter Capital Group
An investment group run by Andrew Wiederhorn. DeWolfe served on its board of directors until 2005. Interestingly, at the time, Wiederhorn’s wife Tiffany was employed by Intermix Media, the company that would later acquire DeWolfe’s startup ResponseBase LLC.

TIMELINE

1999- eUniverse is founded, offering both spyware and a network of entertainment sites.

October 1999- Chris DeWolfe is employed in Xdrive’s marketing department.

March 2001- DeWolfe and Anderson (and the rest of Xdrive’s marketing department) are fired from Xdrive. They ran Xdrive’s only profitable venture, a syndicate newsletter called Intelligent X, which had over 8 million subscribers. DeWolfe was reportably in negotiations to sell the subscriber list to eUniverse at the time he was fired.

2001- After being fired from Xdrive, DeWolfe and Anderson found ResponseBase LLC. A newsletter nearly identical to Intelligent X begins appearing in subscribers’ inboxes. This time, however, it is published by ResponseBase LLC and eUniverse.

September 9, 2002- eUniverse acquires ResponseBase LLC and all its assets, including Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe.

September 2003- California’s anti-spyware law passes. eUniverse seeks other sources of revenue. ResponseBase LLC becomes MySpace LLC.

November 2003- MySpace is fully operational.

July 15, 2004- eUniverse changes its name to Intermix Media, Inc.

Spring 2005- DeWolfe leaves the Fog Cutter Capital Group.

July 2005- Intermix Media buys out MySpace. Days later, it is acquired by Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp for $580 million.

August 2005- Xdrive is purchased by AOL.

Current Day- MySpace, now one of the most popular sites on the net, is still run by President Tom Anderson and CEO Chris DeWolfe, despite being owned by Fox. Many former Xdrive and ResponseBase LLC employees work for the site. The people who used to work for an advertising company now have access to immense amounts of demographic information, as 30% of the US Internet population now uses MySpace.

And finally, some interesting news stories and articles relating to MySpace.

Trent Lapinski’s MySpace Report
MySpace sends a C&D letter to SingleStat.us
Danah Boyd’s view on why MySpace is popular
Intermix Media is sued for spyware distribution

Thanks to blogger Trent Lapinski (www.trentl.com) for his excellent articles and extensive research on MySpace, which provided me with a good deal of information. I’ve just condensed most of that into an easier-to-read form here.

Disclaimer: Don’t quote me on any of this stuff. I’m not saying this is exactly what happened, this is just what I’ve compiled from my sources out of my own interest.