Slingshot Labs, a research and development arm for News Corp.’s digital properties, has lost its two top execs. President Josh Berman and EVP Strategy and Product Diego Berkadin gave News Corp Digital Chief Jon Miller their resignations last week, we’ve heard from multiple sources. Like a plethora of ex MySpace and Fox execs, they are likely to be starting their own company.
This leaves Slingshot Labs in disarray at a crucial moment. Their “LinkedIn Killer” product, internally known as WSJ Connect or Streetfeed, is supposed to go into beta testing next month. We first wrote about the project last year.
Slighshot Labs has also had a couple of other successful product launches. Daily Fill is still going strong. Another project, SocialPlan, is now the backbone of the new MySpace Events. MySpace even grabbed that team out of Slingshot and made them full time MySpace employees.
This also marks the departure of the last MySpace founder from News Corp. Josh Berman was the COO of MySpace at the time it was acquired. Chris DeWolfe (CEO), Tom Anderson (President), Aber Whitcomb (CTO), and Colin Digiaro (SVP Sales) have all now left to work on different projects. Except for Tom, it’s not clear what he’s up to these days.
Slingshot Labs is a startup incubator funded and wholly owned by News Corporation with a focus on fostering applications for MySpace and other web ventures. Slingshot Labs has the goal of nurturing 4-5 businesses per year. Slingshots companies include: Daily Fill
MySpace is one of the world’s largest social networks, with about 125 million users. Originally inspired by Friendster, MySpace quickly grew to become the world’s largest social network, before being overtaken by Facebook. User pages are highly customizable and support integration with widgets such as Slide or YouTube. MySpace provides users with a way to connect around content and culture. MySpace was started as a side project of the internet marketing company eUniverse (now called Intermix Media) in August...
Currently Josh is the Co-Founder and CEO of BeachMint, a next generation eCommerce company based in Santa Monica, CA. The company is focused on social and curated commerce and is backed by New Enterprise Associates and Anthem Ventures. Most recently Josh was the President of Slingshot Labs, a division of News Corporation, is a web incubator dedicated to building new Internet companies. Slingshot Labs employs a portfolio approach to the development and launch of businesses, and plans to nurture...
Diego Berdakin is the President of BeachMint, the Santa Monica based social commerce company he co-founded in July 2010 with Josh Berman. Backed by New Enterprise Associates, Trinity Ventures, Accel, Anthem, Scale & Goldman Sachs, BeachMint operates six direct to consumer sites that each offer exclusive product designed and curated by a celebrity and a style expert through a subscription shopping model. BeachMint launched their first brand, JewelMint, with Kate Bosworth and celebritystylist, Cher Coulter, in October 2010, StyleMint...
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