MySpace's outlook was not always so dismal. In 2006, when MySpace was named the most popular social networking site, it's estimated value rose to $6 billion. While RCB Capital Markets analyst David Banks considered the company worth only $5 billion in 2007, MySpace's perceived heyday was still yet to come. TechCrunch's Michael Arrington calculated that, based on the "most valuable social network's" high page view numbers, it was worth around $20 billion. The next year, surpassed in popularity by Facebook, TechCrunch reevaluated the company's worth and brought it down to $6.5 billion. Finally, in 2010, Business Insider ventured that NewsCorp stood to get anywhere from $500 million to $1.2 billion for MySpace--"with the lower end being LESS than Rupert paid for it, and the upper end being twice what he paid for it (hardly the steal of the century)."

 

At a glance, MySpace's slow decline seems inverse to the success of its greatest competitor, Facebook. In fact, it almost is. We gathered MySpace's estimated values over the past seven years, averaging Business Insider's predicted range in 2010 to get $850 million, into a chart and combined it with one we made earlier this year for Facebook's value changes over the same time period. Check out the disparity, below.