MySpace CEO Mike Jones has the challenging task of rejuvenating a faded brand. He is overseeing a re-launch of the still popular site, that despite its size –130 million unique users worldwide – has become far less important than Facebook. MySpace no longer is challenging Facebook directly. In fact, it recently signed a deal with Facebook to allows its users to sign up for MySpace using their Facebook credentials. An entrepreneur before joining MySpace as chief operating officer in April, 2009, Jones became co-CEO in January and sole CEO in June. In an interview earlier this month he discusses how he's trying to re-position MySpace and how much times he's got from News Corp (NWS)., MySpace's owner, to get that job done. An edited transcript follows.

Fortune: MySpace just several years ago was all the rage in social networking.  It's really taken a backseat to Facebook in particular, but others.  It's been sort of a dramatic reversal. First, explain how MySpace got in that situation.

Mike Jones: Well, my belief is that MySpace got very, very diverse in its offering, and didn't really have a specialized service that users understood.  So, as we broadened our service over time, I think we lost some of the core strategic functions that MySpace offered early on that delighted its customers.

F: Early on MySpace developed a reputation for being largely about music.  Are you saying that got lost along the way? More