The San Francisco office, in the SoMa neighborhood near AT&T Park, will focus on enhancing MySpace’s infrastructure, creating products and forging strategic partnerships - some of which are expected to be announced this week.

The move is the latest sign of growth for the Los Angeles company, which was acquired two years ago by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

Most of the new hires will be engineers.

"We literally planned out all the products we’re going to build in the next year or two. We don’t have enough engineers to do what we want to do," MySpace Chief Executive Officer Chris DeWolfe said. "Clearly, San Francisco and Silicon Valley attract the top engineering talent in the world. … It’s going to allow us to develop incredibly rapidly."

Facebook closing in

DeWolfe and Murdoch will be in San Francisco this week, delivering the keynote address at the Web 2.0 Summit Wednesday evening.

MySpace drew nearly 69 million users last month, according to comScore. But it faces increasing pressure from Facebook, its closest competitor, which attracted more than 30.6 million users in September. Facebook more than doubled its audience from a year ago, when it reached about 13.3 million people. MySpace also grew during the same period, but less dramatically, from about 56 million users in September 2006.

The competition between the two sites heated up this spring, when Facebook rolled out a program that opened up its site to outside developers, inviting them to create programs for the Facebook platform. Since then, more than 5,600 applications - from photo slide shows to online music services - have been made for Facebook. Facebook members can add them to their profile page by clicking on an "add application" button.

Rumors soon began circulating that MySpace planned a similar project, but MySpace executives have been mum on the subject.

MySpace also is in the middle of a redesign. DeWolfe said MySpace plans to make it easier for members to add applications, also known as widgets, to their profile pages.

Many MySpace users already know how and have been doing it for some time: Widget creators supply a software code, which users cut and paste into sections of their profile.

MySpace helped popularize programs such as slide shows from San Francisco’s Slide and Rock You, as well as the photo service Photobucket, which MySpace acquired this year.

MySpace plans to integrate the process so it’s less "cut and "paste" and more "drag and drop," said Aber Whitcomb, chief technology officer for the site.

Customization features

Members also will be able to customize their profile page by moving around sections of their profile.

"Our users are telling us they would like that feature," Whitcomb said. "They want a new form of self-expression."

And MySpace plans to introduce an advertising program that will allow small-business owners to design and place ads on the site automatically. The self-serve program, which will let owners target a particular audience, could compete with the advertising networks of Google and Yahoo, DeWolfe said.

MySpace employs about 400 engineers in Beverly Hills and 40 in Seattle. It also has international offices in London and elsewhere.