MySpace's parent to buy Photobucket
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(InfoWorld) - After an uglyÂ name-calling flapÂ last month, News Corp.'s MySpace and Photobucket will end up as part of the same company. Fox Interactive Media (FIM), the News Corp. division to which MySpace belongs, announced Wednesday it has agreed to buy Photobucket, which operates the U.S.'s most popular photo site. FIM also announced its agreement to acquire Flektor, a company that lets users edit photos and videos and embed them on Web pages. The acquisitions are expected to boost the photo and video sharing and editing capabilities of FIM's Web site network, particularly MySpace, the world's most popular social networking site. For about two weeks in April, MySpace blocked the videos and photo slideshows its users created, stored, and edited with Photobucket. The move, MySpace said, came after Photobucket knowingly violated its terms of service by encouraging MySpace users to run an ad-sponsored slideshow in their profile pages. This prompted Photobucket's CEO Alex Welch to term the action "a retrograde step." Photobucket also said MySpace never contacted it before implementing the block, essentially calling MySpace officials liars. The spat again highlighted a recurrent criticism of MySpace: that it has been reluctant to open its platform to third parties, a hallmark of the Web 2.0 mashup philosophy. MySpace grants access to its platform on a case-by-case basis to companies that request it, but doesn't have open APIs (application programming interface), something most Internet companies provide for many services. At the time of the controversy, Welch captured the essence of these objections, saying MySpace's action contradicted "the very ethos of personal and social media" as well as "an unacceptable attempt to limit the freedom of the very people who are its lifeblood -- its users." Last week, Facebook, a MySpace competitor, made a big splash when it announced it is opening up its service to external developers, a move that was seen as an attempt to capitalize on MySpace's contrasting philosophy. News Corp. and FIM executives have been candid about their misgivings over third-party services on MySpace, which they feel take advantage of the site's massive popularity. Photobucket, which lets users store photos, slide shows, videos and graphics on its servers and then link them to other Web sites, receives almost 57 percent of its upstream traffic from MySpace, Hitwise Pty Ltd. said in April. MySpace and Photobucket eventuallyÂ reached a truceÂ and MySpace lifted the ban. Shortly afterwards, rumors began flying that FIM was in the process of acquiring Photobucket. Wednesday's confirmation of the deal could be interpreted as being in line with FIM's reservations about having third parties build a business on MySpace's back, preferring instead to acquire, in this case, Photobucket, and bring it into its fold. In November 2006, MySpace had the 38.7 billion page views, the most of any site on the Internet, according to comScore Networks Inc. In March of this year, it had almost 95 million unique visitors from around the world. Meanwhile, Photobucket ranks by far as the most popular photo-sharing site in the U.S. with 41.4 percent of visits to sites in that category in March, according to Hitwise. Photobucket, founded in 2003, has 39 million registered users and ranked 34th among comScore's top 50 U.S. Web properties in March, with almost 16.8 million unique visitors. FIM didn't disclose terms of the acquisitions. The Flektor acquisition has been finalized, but the Photobucket deal still requires regulatory approvals is expected to close in the next 30 days, a FIM spokesman said via e-mail. Â
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Financial types don't like teenage girls, apparently Newswire and financial data service Reuters is to dip another finger in Web 2.0 waters by setting up its own version of MySpace. But the Reuters site will be targeted at City traders rather than US teenagers.â¦
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By CHRISTOPHER JOHN TREACY  Ernie Halter might make the perfect MySpace.com poster boy.  Only Halter's a few years older than the average user.
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The founder of MySpace.com parent Intermix Media on Thursday said he is seeking a federal investigation of the sale of Intermix to News Corp. last year, claiming the deal defrauded shareholders by undervaluing the Internet's most popular networking site.
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PC Magazine - MySpace, the wildly popular online teen hangout, said on Friday it will make its first move into the digital music business by selling songs from nearly 3 million unsigned bands.
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If you're waiting to add Cassie as one of your MySpace.com friends, just be patient. There are a few million people ahead of you.
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MySpace-owner Fox Interactive Media  said on Wednesday it will buy photo-sharing site Photobucket  and Flektor Inc., a provider of Web-based photo editing  software, to give its more than 100 million unique visitors  tools to create their own content.
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News Corp.'s (NWSa.N) Web network  MySpace has been in talks for several months with online  auction company eBay Inc.  about a partnership, the  Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people  familiar with the matter.
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By THE WASHINGTON POST  Does the name evoke MySpace.com? That's a calculated strategy, right down to the instant messaging, user profile data and thumbnail photos.
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News Corp.'s  MySpace said on  Tuesday it will offer in the next 30 days a technology to  identify and block convicted sex offenders from the popular  online social network.
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News Corp.'s Web network MySpace has been in talks for several months with online auction company eBay Inc. about a partnership, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
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It can be difficult to determine who owns pictures on the web. Why not create an attribute for the image tag that clarifies the confusion? In Monkey Bites.
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MySpace will open the doors of its developer Web site on Tuesday and make available there the necessary tools to build applications for the world's most popular social-networking site.
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A Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O spin-off on   Tuesday said it will take on Internet social networks   MySpace.com and Facebook.com, touting tools users can buy to   craft better-looking Web pages.
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Online photo sharing, storage and creativity Web site Photobucket and audio/video sharing site Flektor are being acquired by Fox Interactive Media, a division of media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
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A 17-gigabyte file now available via BitTorrent offers 500,000 photos collected from MySpace user profiles. The file's creator assembled the collection shortly before MySpace closed a backdoor allowing voyeurs to peek in on photo galleries of private profiles.
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MySpace, the social networking  Web site, could be worth around $15 billion within three years,  measured in terms of the value created for shareholders of  parent company News Corp., a Wall Street media analyst forecast  on Wednesday.