Hadi Partovi

Ali Partovi

iLike executives Ali and Hadi Partovi were noticeably absent from the press call two months ago when MySpace purchased their online music recommendation service for a reported $20 million. But the twin brothers are turning out to be key elements of the social networking giant's future, possibly signaling that the iLike purchase was as much about the talent as it was the technology.

In a blog post today, MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta announced that the Partovis have been appointed to senior roles at MySpace. And at least one of those appointments could lead to bigger things in Seattle's tech community.

Ali Partovi -- who served as CEO of iLike -- has been named vice president of business development at MySpace. He will be based in San Francisco. Meanwhile, Hadi Partovi -- former president of iLike -- has been tapped as senior vice president of technology in Seattle. And it is Hadi's role which got special mention from Van Natta, a former Amazon.com executive.

Van Natta wrote:

"Hadi will bolster our Seattle-based development team, unify the MySpace and iLike teams under one roof, and grow the Seattle-based team behind some of our most popular products like Mail and IM. The iLike acquisition is now officially closed so this week we’re celebrating Ali and Hadi’s new MySpace roles as well as the future of great synergies between the MySpace and iLike teams."

MySpace has maintained development offices in Seattle for some time, and now with Hadi Partovi leading the technology team that group could be poised to grow. Furthermore, having a high-profile tech company anchoring development efforts here is good news.

And it continues a tradition of Pacific Northwest connections for MySpace. MySpace co-founder Aber Whitcomb -- who announced he was stepping down last month from the CTO role -- is a Bellingham native who attended the University of Washington.

UPDATE: MySpace now employs 70 people in Seattle, including the iLike staffers. The iLike employees will be moving to the MySpace offices in the coming months, though a spokesperson with the company declined to comment on future job growth in the Seattle area.