• TechCrunch, Thursday, July 16, 2009 1:30 PM

In his short tenure as MySpace CEO, Owen Van Natta has proven to be good for a few choice sound bites. In June, Van Natta referred to laid off employees (MySpace actually cut nearly half its global staff) as "bloat." Now, in his latest memo to the troops, obtained by TechCrunch, Van Natta tells it like it is, again. "Our users don't know if we're a social portal, a music site, or an entertainment hub," he writes.

Well, "neither do we," says TC's Michael Arrington. The former No. 1 social network on the Web always described itself as such until it wasn't No. 1 anymore. Since then, the company has variously called itself a "premier lifestyle portal", an "online community that lets you meet your friends' friends," and the largest "social portal" on the Web.

Presumably, Van Natta and MySpace will have an answer to what exactly it is in the coming weeks and months. In the meantime, Van Natta notes that MySpace has made several "small but meaningful site changes" that he says "will lay the groundwork to provide more clarity to our brand and business." However, Arrington says it's unclear what these changes have been, exactly, aside from a logo change.

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