News Corp. comes from online advertising company Specific Media's network of
Out after six turbulent years: Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. comes off once the world's leading online social network MySpace to the advertising company Specific Media. When the takeover was in the boat with pop star Justin Timberlake, Specific Media, announced on Wednesday. He will take over a share and play an important role in strategy development for MySpace.
News Corp. sources said the sale brings in proceeds of 35 million dollars (24.5 million euros) - a fraction of what the media empire established in 2005 after a bidding battle for MySpace on the table. In recent years, MySpace lost in the increasingly important industry and has since been suspended from rival Facebook. The deal also stands in contrast to the great interest in the newer Internet sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Groupon currently produce for investors.
News Corp had bought MySpace in 2005 for 580 million dollars and it cut out in the race for the coveted time rival companies such as Viacom. Observers had expected that the MySpace sale now News Corp. could bring in another 100 million dollars. The media giant had tried in the past four months to find a buyer for the subsidiary. It had lots of other online networks, and associated companies expressed interest.
Job cuts
Sources said News Corp. will retain a share of five percent on MySpace. More than half of the approximately 500 employees are likely to MySpace in connection with the sale to lose their jobs, a person familiar with the transaction said.
Comes with pop star Timberlake at MySpace, an actor on the plan that has the Facebook movie "The Social Network" presented to the consultant and investor Sean Parker.MySpace was founded in 2003 as a dating and fan site. At the height of their popularity in 2008 had MySpace in the U.S. alone 80 million users - nearly twice as many as Facebook.The online market researcher comScore indicates that the amount of the MySpace visitor from the United States but declined to 40 million, while the Facebook page now lists about 150 million visits from the U.S.. (Reuters)
