The MySpace.com Guys.

In late 2003, Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe launched a social-networking site, MySpace.com, to let teens and young adults make friends and discover new, budding rock stars. The idea worked so well that this year Anderson and DeWolfe became rock stars themselves. Anderson, the 29-year-old public face of the site, can't walk the streets of L.A. without being asked to pose for a photo. The founders won't even hang the MySpace logo outside their Santa Monica, Calif., headquarters. "There are 5 million MySpace users in the area," Anderson says. "It's kind of a security issue."

The partners, who met working at an unsuccessful dot-com, have built one of the Internet's fastest-growing sites, with 43 million members and more hits per day than either Google or AOL. Now they want to get really big. In November, they teamed with Interscope to create MySpace Records, a label that will release a few albums each year from bands discovered on the site. In coming months they'll launch a MySpace satellite-radio station, new features that let users access their MySpace accounts from mobile phones and, soon, MySpace Films. With help from their new owner, News Corp. (which bought MySpace parent company Intermix in July for $580 million), Anderson and DeWolfe plan to back a few independent films each year and flood openings with MySpace members. "It costs us nothing to get millions of MySpace users to show up at events," DeWolfe says.

It almost sounds as if they're building a rival to Viacom's MTV. "I think MySpace already means something to its audience in much the same way that MTV meant something to its audience during its early years," says News Corp.'s Internet chief, Ross Levinsohn. But he advises the MySpace founders to remain focused on their site--and on staying ahead of rivals who would like nothing better than to topple a pair of rock stars.

PHOTO (COLOR): Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe

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By Brad Stone