April 24 (Bloomberg) -- News Corp. named former Facebook Inc. Chief Operating Officer Owen Van Natta to lead MySpace, appointing an ex-rival to revive the social-networking Web site.

Van Natta takes over the role of chief executive from MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe, 43, who is stepping down. Van Natta will report to Jonathan Miller, who became News Corp.’s chief digital officer earlier this month, the New York-based media company said today in a statement.

The shakeup puts Van Natta, 39, at the front of efforts to rejuvenate a company that popularized online social networking and is now playing catch-up to his former employer, Palo Alto, California-based Facebook. MySpace may lose revenue when a $900 million advertising contract with Google Inc. expires next year.

“They have had that as a very big cushion,” said David Bank, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets in New York. “When that deal expires there could be more volatility.”

The Google deal is likely to be renewed at less favorable terms for MySpace, said Bank, who rates News Corp. shares “outperform” and doesn’t own it.

The statement didn’t mention MySpace President Tom Anderson, 33, who co-founded the site with DeWolfe in 2003. When DeWolfe stepped down this week, Miller, 52, said he was in talks with Anderson about a new role.

News Corp., the New York-based owner of newspapers and Fox broadcasting, rose 27 cents to $7.94 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The Class A shares have fallen 13 percent this year.

MySpace Purchase

Last month, MySpace announced the departure of Chief Operating Officer Amit Kapur, who is leaving with two other senior executives to start a new company.

Rupert Murdoch purchased MySpace’s parent company in 2005 for $580 million as part of an effort to add more online advertising to his traditional media outlets of television and newspapers. The site was the most-popular social-networking service, allowing users to create unique pages that held music, blog postings, pictures and comments from friends.

Last year, MySpace was overtaken by Facebook as the world’s largest social-networking platform, according to researcher ComScore Inc. Facebook has roughly 200 million users, compared with MySpace’s 130 million.

“Getting traction back from Facebook is going to be very challenging,” said Bank. Users favor Facebook’s ability to connect people over MySpace’s strength as an outlet for self- expression, he said.

Van Natta

Van Natta left Facebook in February 2008 just before it passed MySpace. While at the company, he helped negotiate a $240 million investment by Microsoft Corp., News Corp. said. Before joining Facebook, Van Natta was a marketing and corporate development executive at Amazon.com Inc. Since November, he has been the chief executive officer at Playlist Inc., a service to upload music and share play lists.

“Owen combines a deep understanding of social networking, a keen business sense and the operational experience to guide MySpace through its next phase of growth,” Miller said in the statement.

Playlist today named John Sykes, a co-founder of MTV, as CEO to replace Van Natta as head of the music-oriented social network. Van Natta will remain an adviser, Palo Alto, California-based Playlist said in a statement.

Van Natta’s new boss, Miller, was hired April 1 to oversee digital businesses as part of a reorganization to prepare for the departure of News Corp. President Peter Chernin, the company’s second-in-command.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sarah Rabil in New York at srabil@bloomberg.net; Adam Satariano in San Francisco at asatariano1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 24, 2009 16:12 EDT