At the All Things Digital D9 conference, Jonathan Miller, Head of News Corp.’s digital media group, reportedly said that “in two weeks, we’ll know something,” with regards to a MySpace sale.
The News Corp. business group that MySpace is a part of lost $165 million in the third quarter (compared to a loss of $150 million in the same period the year prior), according to Bloomberg.
Once the leader in social networks, MySpace has lost a lot of its luster, as more people have migrated to Facebook and essentially left the site behind. MySpace is even the butt of most of the jokes in the recent viral “Roast of Facebook” video:
News Corp. bought MySpace in 2005 for $580 million, and it’s pretty much been in a nosedive since. Earlier this year, the company cut nearly half of its staff.
Last year, MySpace basically re-branded itself as more of an entertainment content site than a social network, and even started using Facebook integration. That hasn’t done much to keep the site’s traffic from plummeting, from the looks of it, though to be fair, it still gets a ton of traffic. According to Compete, MySpace had nearly 33 million unique visitors in April.
That’s got to be worth something to somebody. The question is who. It certainly doesn’t seem like the most attractive buy, but if the price is right, who knows? Could someone turn MySpace around? How much is it worth? Reports suggest that News Corp. is asking $100 million, but is having trouble finding buyers. Bebo owners Criterion Capital and Vevo have both been mentioned in previous reports as possibilities.