Former MySpace Chief Van Natta Joins Zynga

Former Facebook and MySpace executive Owen Van Natta has joined online gaming giant Zynga, which produces FarmVille and Mafia Wars.

Van Natta will serve as executive vice president of business operations, reporting to founder and chief executive Mark Pincus. Zynga declined to provide additional details.

The company has been in the news recently after signing lucrative deals with Facebook and Yahoo, and obtaining a reported $100 million investment from Google.

Van Natta resigned as CEO of MySpace in February, 10 months after taking the job. The social-networking site has had trouble keeping up with Facebook, which recently reached 500 million users. Mike Jones and Jason Hirschhorn took over for Van Natta as co-presidents, but four months later, Hirschhorn also resigned.

Prior to joining MySpace, Van Natta was CEO of Project Playlist, which recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Prior to that, Van Natta was vice president of operations at Facebook. He left the company in early 2008, several months after he helped broker Microsoft's $240 million investment in the social networking site. Van Natta also served as vice president of worldwide business and corporate development at Amazon.