Social networking dinosaur, Myspace, announced Tuesday that they will be laying off 500 employees – close to half the company’s workforce.

“Today’s tough but necessary changes were taken in order to provide the company with a clear path for sustained growth and profitability,” CEO Mike Jones said in a statement.

In June, Myspace eliminated 430 jobs, leaving 1,000 employees before this announcement.

In 2005, Myspace was purchased for $580 million by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, a parent company of Fox Broadcasting.

The sale of Myspace to Murdoch’s media conglomerate did not go without controversy – founder and former CEO of Myspace Brad Greenspan claimed board members cheated shareholders by selling the company for less than its worth.

This has been a tough year for Myspace with Facebook and Twitter increasingly becoming the dominant social networking portals.

In August, Myspace will celebrate its eighth birthday, but the company will continue to struggle to compete with Facebook this year.

Since early 2008, a combination of heavy spamming on user profiles, bad publicity, and other factors, caused a crippling dent in Myspace’s status as the leading social networking site. On April 19, 2008, Facebook official took over Myspace’s four-year term as the top social networking site.