To not compete directly with Facebook. That’s just about all MySpace can hope for at this point. Last week the once-pioneering/now-struggling social media site announced it would send 500 employees walking, nearly half its workforce, as part of a major restructuring effort. The move followed reports late last year that parent News Corp. was mulling a sale, merger or spin-off of the company. Whatever its fate, MySpace faces a long road ahead, and Facebook casts a long shadow.

“My expectation…is that MySpace will be spun off into what the News Corp — or a potential new owner — hopes is an adjacent and as-yet unrealized market, something that does not compete directly with Facebook,” analyst Brad Shimmin of Current Analysis told Computerworld last week.

Calling MySpace damaged goods would be an understatement, and analyst Rob Enderle suspects a fourth option may be in the cards for News Corp.: shutting down the site altogether. That would be an enormous waste, Enderle posits, though he’s hard-pressed to think of a good reason why someone like Google would be interested in investing.

Since 2009, MySpace has seen its social networking market share erode to the likes of Facebook and, to a lesser degree, Twitter. In November 2010 the company rebranded itself and announced a “mashup” with Facebook that enables users to share information across both sites.

It was a concession of major proportions for the once mighty MySpace, bowing at the throne of Zuckerberg, but it may fall short of what this company needs to stay in the highly volatile social media game.