Latest statistics suggest attempts to kick new life into MySpace have probably failed. ComScore figures show MySpace shed more than 10 million unique users between January and February.

Year on year the site has lost somewhere in the region of 50 million users.

This must be causing some frustration back at News Corps HQ where the site has undergone several substantial changes and refits in a collection of futile attempts to stem the exodus of users. All, apparently, to no avail.

This may have been the site that launched the careers of Lily Allen and Kate Nash, but in recent times the likes of Justin Beiber and Grayson Chance have stolen much of the musical thunder that was once the specialism of MySpace.

But News Corp. Digital Media are nothing if not persistent, perhaps understandably so given that Murdoch is probably keen to see some kind of return on Fox’s US$327 million investment.

Regardless of your opinion of Facebook, its privacy issues or even Zuckerberg himself, it is hard to deny that The Social Network’s social network has properly beaten MySpace into submission.

Mike Jones, the man in charge of MySpace was recently quoted by the BBC as saying that MySpace was no longer a social network, but was in fact an ‘entertainment destination’.

This might seem like a face saving exercise, but there is a strong logic to this. Despite its falling user activity levels, MySpace in the UK still clocked up 2.3 million visitors, which is a figure not to be sniffed at. As a social network competing with Facebook, this is pretty dismal, but when compared to another entertainment destination, like MTV, MySpace seems in much better shape. Alexa analytics puts Myspace some 600 places above MTV in terms of traffic ranking.

Film buffs might recognise the title of this post from an oft-quoted aphorism: "When a director dies, he becomes a cameraman". This doesn't really translate as praise, but it serves to illustrate the predicament in which MySpace now finds itself. MySpace’s challenge appears to be less a case of dwindling user interest, and more that of getting the media to understand the new role it has attempted to forge for itself.