Can Justin Timberlake Bring Sexy Back to MySpace?

Last year, Justin Timberlake played former Facebook president Sean Parker in the Oscar-nominated film The Social Network. Now it appears that Timberlake's life is imitating art. The Grammy-winning singer holds a stake in Specific Media, which just shelled out $35 million to acquire MySpace, a site for which Timberlake will provide strategic direction.

"There's a need for a place where fans can go to interact with their favorite entertainers, listen to music, watch videos, share and discover cool stuff and just connect," Timberlake said in a statement. "MySpace has the potential to be that place. Art is inspired by people and vice versa, so there's a natural social component to entertainment."

Specific Media said it plans to "evolve MySpace into the premiere digital destination for original shows, video content, and music," with specifics to be announced in about two months. But why Timberlake?

"As we started to recognize this transaction was going to happen, the one thing we wanted was help from the creative community," Specific Media CEO Tim Vanderhook told AdAge. "We thought, 'Who is the most talented person for this?' And it was really Justin. We saw different groups of people, and he got incredibly passionate about it. "

According to Vanderhook, Timberlake won't be a hands-off investor. He'll take up an office at MySpace's headquarters in Beverly Hills where he'll have a staff at his disposal. Vanderhook claims Timberlake's role has nothing to do with his on-screen portrayal of Parker, who coincidentally commented on MySpace's demise, saying that at one point, the site "could have been Facebook."

Timberlake shares Specific Media's vision for MySpace, Vanderhook told the AP. "When we met with Justin and we discussed what our strategy was, we hit a chord with him. One of his passions is he really enjoys helping other artists and creating a community for people to express themselves. I think we were blown away that we were able to get someone like Justin to be so excited about what we were doing," he said.

MySpace won't have a CEO anymore; current chief Mike Jones will make his exit within the next few months, and big cuts that include trimming MySpace's staff of 400 by about half will follow. Vanderhook and his brother, Chris, will take over day-to-day operations at the site.

At its peak in October 2008, MySpace had about 73.3 million unique visitors every month, but as of May of this year, that figure slipped to about 35 million, the L.A. Times reports. Whether Timberlake will be able to help bring MySpace's sexy back remains to be seen.