Tom Anderson (MySpace)

Thomas "Tom" Anderson is the President of the social networking website, MySpace. He is one of the people identified as a founder of the site, along with CEO Chris DeWolfe. Since newly created MySpace accounts include Tom as a default "friend," he has become known as the face of MySpace. As of October 21, 2008, Tom has almost 250 million "friends", a number which is constantly increasing due to new MySpace accounts being created.

Anderson earned a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric and English from the University of California, Berkeley and a Master's Degree in film - critical studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. In 2003, he and a few computer programmers set up the first pages of MySpace and the site grew from there. It is currently the most popular social networking website in the United States, and is the most popular website for teenagers as well, consistently performing among the top sites in United States web traffic rankings.

Age dispute and teen life
As of 2007, Tom Anderson claimed he was born on November 8, 1975. In 2008, reports indicated he was 5 years older.

According to several sources, in 1985 then-14-year-old San Pasqual High School (Escondido, California) student Tom Anderson was a computer hacker operating under the alias Lord Flathead. He was known for leading a team that broke into Chase Manhattan Bank computers, altered records and left a message saying that unless he was given free use of the system he would destroy records. He was never charged.

Role in founding
MySpace#Controversy over corporate history
The corporate history of MySpace has been a matter of some public dispute. When MySpace was purchased by News Corp. they also gained control of the editor's account (the Tom Anderson profile) from which all service announcements are made. Such announcements are not from "Tom Anderson" personally but from the corporate owned identity. It has even been claimed that Tom Anderson's role and image as MySpace founder and "first friend" is a public relations invention.

Another aspect of MySpace's origins that turned out to be misrepresented was Anderson's age. Supposedly 27 when the site was first created, the age stated on his profile followed this information, adding a year with each birthday. It was subsequently revealed that Anderson was five years older than his profile claimed. Speculation on the reasons focused on the benefits in reaching the youth market, by positioning the founders as hip young entrepreneurs instead of "30-somethings".