Jones is best known in Southern California's technology community for his success at Userplane, which he founded and sold to AOL. He was most recently CEO of Tsavo Media, which is developing online publishing and advertising technology along with related online content. Tags: hirschhorn jason media sling userplane jones michael tsavo executive myspac News Corporation said a few minutes ago that it has added two new executives at MySpace , and is tapping Tsavo Media's Michael Jones as Chief Operating Officer and Sling Media's Jason Hirschhorn as Chief Product Officer.

Today’s quick roundup of some interesting technology news: Is Santa Monica’s Userplane–the startup sold by Mike Jones to AOL– now in the deadpool ? Is venture capital “broken”? A significant number of VCs apparently think so .

We had an  ongoing agreement with Martin, where he allowed us to post any of his photos of the Los Angeles technology industry’s entrepreneurs and executives. Michael Jones, Userplane We covered this last night,  but  sadly,  Martin Schaedel — who advised many startups here in Los Angeles, and across the world — appears to be the second victim in the plane crash Wednesday at the Santa Monica airport. Our heart goes out to his friends and family.

Santa Monica-based Tsavo Media, the new startup founded by Userplane founder Michael Jones, has launched a new division, focused on search engine marketing. Jones said in a statement that the new division will focus primarily on text ad placement, and makes the firm's internally developed content monetization technology available to external publishers. The firm announced the division Tuesday afternoon, saying that its new Tsavo Agency will provide search engine marketing and content monetization services for companies. The new unit comes shortly after Tsavo Media's acquisition of

Santa Monica-based Tsavo Media, the startup headed by former Userplane CEO Michael Jones, said today that it has acquired Better Inc, the SEO and pay-per-click marketing software firm headed by Ben Padnos. technology uses technology to help set up, manage, optimize, and report on pay-per-click campaigns for small and medium businesses. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Better Inc.'s

Most of the folks in Los Angeles will know Michael well, from his days bootstrapping Userplane (sold to AOL), as well as his recent efforts with both Tsavo , as well as his efforts (along with Peter Pham and others) to get the technology elite networking here. Michael Jones and Jason Hirschhorn have just been appointed COO and Chief Product Officer, respectively, over at MySpace. Jason was most recently at Sling Media , and prior to that was Chief Digital Officer at MTV Networks .

One of the recent trends in the technology industry here in Los Angeles is the use of "coworking" spaces--flexible workspaces where companies can rent open office space. Jerome Chang: We have quite a variety of residents here, ranging from a lawyer, to real estate investors, to technology startups, to people in the entertainment industry, such as production firms, script writers, and filmmakers. What Mike's BLANKSPACES (www.blankspaces.com) -- which is on Wilshire Blvd.--is is the brainchild of architect Jerome Chang.

was thinking about this recently in respect to Southern California–land of Michael Jackson—and its technology industry, and I find it interesting how Silicon Valley’s own list of “technology celebrities” compares to Southern California’s own set of “technology celebrities.” I’m thinking of folks like Mike Jones (Userplane/AOL/now MySpace), Matt Coffin (LowerMyBills), Sky Dayton (Earthlink etc.), I’m sure everyone’s seen Intel’s big advertising push “ Our rock stars aren’t your rock stars “–comparing the firm’s technologists to celebrity rock stars.

worked at Userplane, building social applications for sites like MySpace. With our technology, we're able to pinpoint that information, and do lots of analytics, and tie that back into zones but also specific advertisers. As companies figure out a way to monetize social media, one of the areas which has been lacking is a way to measure the impact and effectiveness of social media advertising. To gain some insight into the area, we spoke with Ian Swanson, one of the founders of Sometrics (www.sometrics.com), which develops software to gather information on social media and optimize

worked at Userplane, building social applications for sites like MySpace. With our technology, we're able to pinpoint that information, and do lots of analytics, and tie that back into zones but also specific advertisers. As companies figure out a way to monetize social media, one of the areas which has been lacking is a way to measure the impact and effectiveness of social media advertising. To gain some insight into the area, we spoke with Ian Swanson, one of the founders of Sometrics (www.sometrics.com), which develops software to gather information on social media and optimize