据传新闻集团旗下社交网站Myspace前CEO欧文·范纳塔(Owen Van Natta)很有可能出任美国社交游戏开发商Zynga首席运营官(COO)一职。

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去年4月，新闻集团对Myspace原管理层进行“大换血”，其中包括Myspace前CEO克里斯·德沃尔夫(Chris DeWolfe)、前总裁汤姆·安德森(Tom Anderson)等核心高管离职。随后范纳塔被任命为Myspace首席执行官。

但今年2月，任职不到一年的范纳塔从Myspace离职。有传闻称，范纳塔离职的原因是与其“顶头上司”、新闻集团数字部门负责人乔恩·米勒(Jon Miller)不和。范纳塔离职后，Myspace首席运营官迈克·琼斯(Mike Jones)和首席产品官詹森·希施霍恩(Jason Hirschhorn)被任命为Myspace联合总裁(注：希施霍恩已于上月宣布离职)。

范纳塔已在互联网产业从业多年。在加盟Myspace之前，他曾先后在亚马逊、Facebook 及其他互联网公司任职。此前有报道称，范纳塔从Myspace离职后，他的身份转变成一位天使投资人，并向多家科技创业公司提供咨询服务。

斯韦什尔周四援引消息人士的表述称，最近范纳塔对Zynga的市场增长前景很感兴趣。Zynga主要从事社交游戏开发，因向Facebook用户提供游戏而名声大振。前不久Zynga进行了新一轮融资，并加强了与Facebook的合作关系，同时还与雅虎达到了合作协议，以向雅虎用户提供各类社交游戏。

知情人士称，由于Zynga需要处理大量事务，该公司创始人兼CEO马克·平卡斯(Mark Pincus)已聘请范纳塔担任公司顾问，主要就Zynga发展战略和日常运营提供建议。

或出任COO

知情人士还表示，范纳塔目前仅担任Zynga顾问，但不排除Zynga今后给他提供一个正式职位的可能性，比如邀请范纳塔正式加盟Zynga并出任公司首席运营官一职。多个消息来源称，最近数周中，Zynga高管层已就邀请范纳塔正式加盟一事与后者进行了积极探讨。

在Facebook初创阶段，范纳塔曾担任该公司COO及 Facebook创始人兼CEO马克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerber)的个人顾问。如果范纳塔今后真的担任Zynga首席运营官一职，等于又回到了自己的老本行。在Facebook工作期间，范纳塔曾亲自负责该公司早期的数起交易，如成功说服微软向Facebook投资等。他于2008年初从Facebook离职。

对于范纳塔或出任Zynga首席运营官的传闻，平卡斯拒加置评，范纳塔本人目前也没有就此加以回应。（据腾讯）

After longtime Internet tech exec Owen Van Natta was ousted from his job as CEO of MySpace last February, after clashing with News Corp. (NWS) digital chief Jon Miller and also the other two top execs at the troubled social networking site, he seemed to drop off the map a bit to chillax and regroup.

Not for long, though, as the high-profile Van Natta (pictured here)–he was also a top exec at Facebook in its early days, as well as at Amazon (AMZN) before that–soon began doing mentoring and also unofficial consulting work with various start-ups in which he was an angel investor or had developed an interest.

Most especially, according to numerous sources, that effort has now been largely focused on Zynga, the red-hot social gaming company that has been on a growth and revenue tear of late.

Under CEO and founder Mark Pincus, that has included big new rounds of investment, renewing its partnership with Facebook after some contention, striking another deal to put its popular games such as Farmville throughout Yahoo (YHOO) and, reportedly, working on an even bigger deal with Google (GOOG).

It’s been a very active time for Zynga, which has been contemplating an initial public offering.

All that, sources said, has prompted Pincus to increasingly bring in Van Natta as an adviser to the start-up, focused mostly on strategy and operations.

And, said sources, that could eventually result in a more formal role, such as Van Natta joining Zynga in an official job, like COO. Many say that both have been seriously contemplating such a move in recent weeks.

In fact, at the recent Allen & Co. media confab in Sun Valley, which both attended, Van Natta and Pincus told many of Van Natta’s more substantive advisory role.

A COO job like that would not be a big leap for Van Natta, who was COO and close advisor to Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg at the nascency of the company.

Van Natta was key to some important early deals, such as bringing on Microsoft (MSFT) as an investor and staffing the young service.

In doing so, he formed a close bond with the then less experienced Zuckerberg.

Eventually, though, that relationship cooled, and Van Natta’s job shifted as more execs joined.

Van Natta left the social networking giant in early 2008.

He did a short stint as CEO of music discovery site Playlist later in 2008, but was put in charge at MySpace as part of an awkward troika of leadership by the following April.

Although he moved to reinvigorate the tarnished service, Van Natta’s job there was short-lived, After much internal wrangling with COO Michael Jones and product head Jason Hirschhorn, Miller suddenly fired him in a tense meeting earlier this year.

To be sure, to grab a big job at Zynga would be a splashy move for both the company and Van Natta, who has clearly seen quite a few of them in his Internet career.

When I contacted them to ask about Van Natta’s role, Pincus declined comment and Van Natta has yet to respond.（据All Things Digital）