This week MySpace announced plans to cut 30% of its US workforce — a total of 420 employees.

"Simply put, our staffing levels were bloated and hindered our ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company," stated CEO Owen Van Natta.

comScore figures suggest Facebook had about half of MySpace's US audience this time last year. But by May 2009, MySpace's audience plummeted to 70 million and is now outpaced by Facebook, which has over 300 million users worldwide. (The US userbase is composed of about 30% of that figure — or 90 million.) In April 2009, total minutes spent on Facebook increased 700% year-over-year, leaving MySpace — still tops for social video streams — at a distant second with -31% year-over-year growth.

On the other end of the socnet spectrum, Twitter enjoyed 28-fold growth in US traffic over the course of the past year, and now serves 17 million users, reports The Globe and Mail.

"MySpace had a choice here. Think very big about how they could be the most powerful social network out there. Or they could focus down on the things they are good at: connecting young people and people interested in media and music," said Forrester's Josh Bernoff.

Recent eMarketer projections say social networking ad spend will slide 3% in the US in '09 (totaling $1.14 billion). The firm attributed the slip primarily to "problems at MySpace" that would drag the curve down.