Former MySpace chairman to buy "how-to" Web site
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A company founded by the ex-chairman  of social network MySpace plans to announce on Tuesday it has  purchased online video site ExpertVillage.com to bolster its  archive of "how-to" information on the Internet.
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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.
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NEWS Corporation has discussed swapping its MySpace internet social network site for a 25% stake in an enlarged Yahoo. Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp, is reportedly ready to give up control of MySpace in return for a significant stake in a much larger internet business.
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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 is reportedly considering selling MySpace to Yahoo for a 25% stake in the internet search firm.
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News Corp. recently discussed swapping its MySpace social-networking site in exchange for a large stake in Yahoo, according to published reports.
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Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is discussing swapping social networking Web site MySpace for a 25 percent stake in Yahoo Inc., The Times newspaper reported Wednesday.
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(InfoWorld) - Cisco Systems is continuing to buy its way into social networking, acquiring some assets of the company that operates Tribe.net while letting the site remain independent. Cisco announced Monday it has bought selected assets of Utah Street Networks, a seven-person San Francisco company founded in 2003. It did not acquire Tribe.net, a social-networking site that has been overshadowed by the success of big names such as Friendster, Facebook, and News Corp.'s MySpace. Cisco did not reveal the terms of the deal, which has already been completed, in a statement Monday. With the purchase, Cisco gets a proprietary software infrastructure that Utah Street has used to create and maintain online communities on Tribe.net. The dominant networking vendor will integrate that software into its Cisco Media Solutions Group (CMSG), and certain Utah Street employees will join that team to continue software development, according to Cisco. Cisco started moving into content infrastructure last year with the formation of the CMSG, which made its first acquisition last month when itÂ bought social-networking software company Five Across. On Monday, Cisco announced that acquisition had been completed. The San Jose, California, company sees social networking as a key part of the way media companies and other enterprises will approach their customers. On Tribe.net, users can set up personal profiles, join interest groups, post blog entries and pictures, and review local businesses, among other things. Versions of the site exist for dozens of U.S. cities. Utah Street brings unspecified capabilities to Cisco that Five Across -- and even well-known social networking sites -- don't have, said Eric Chan, strategy and marketing director for CMSG. "This is also a company that has been going through the wars of running a social networking site over the past few years," Chan said. Among other things, that real-world experience taught the company lessons about how people use such a site, he said. Cisco is finished buying social-networking companies, at least for now, Chan said. CMSG's mission extends beyond that technology to a range of other tools for enterprises to make closer connections with their customers, he said. Most enterprises haven't yet started using social-networking technologies, but they could prove great tools for communication even within companies, said Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala. Enterprise IT departments, which typically dictate what tools employees should use to communicate, should instead provide a variety of methods users understand and let them choose, Kerravala said. Cisco can pave the way for that change by combining several such tools in one package for enterprises to deploy. "I think it's very forward-looking by Cisco," Kerravala said. Demand for such consumer-style software will grow as today's young people enter the work force, he said. In fact, Kerravala thinks Cisco should go one step further into the future by buying Second Life creator Linden Research.
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The Web auction leader has acquired StumbleUpon, a Web browsing recommendation site, for $75 million in cash.
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News Corp.'s (NWSa.N) MySpace.com is  in talks to bring the social-networking site to China with  Boston technology trade publisher International Data Group's  Chinese venture arm and former China Netcom Group Corp.  (0906.HK) Chief Executive Edward Tian, the Wall Street Journal  reported on its Web site on Friday.
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By John Holland, The Modesto Bee, Calif.  Dec. 15--The McClatchy Co., owner of The Modesto Bee, is buying the  Modesto Famous and Fresno Famous Web sites.
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Blog: Jeff Berman, MySpace's general manager of video, tells CNET News.com about the social networking site's plans for its new MySpace TV, from Flektor to music videos to original programming.
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(InfoWorld) - It may seem like tilting at windmills, but Wallop Technologies expects to shake up the social networking market, currently dominated by entrenched players like News Corp.'s MySpace, Facebook, and Friendster. Wallop is betting that a slick platform based on Adobe Systems' Flash multimedia system, an absence of ads, and a community of third-party developers will set apart its social networking site, which it will announce on Tuesday at Demo Fall in San Diego. A private companyÂ spun off from Microsoft's research unit, Wallop hopes its service will primarily draw people between the ages of 18 and 25 who value its "high-end" yet intuitive user experience, said Karl Jacob, the company's chief executive officer. Wallop's Flash platform is open to developers, so that they can create modules for members to dress up and enhance their social network profiles. Some of these modules will be free. Wallop will share revenue with the developers from the sale of others. Goowy Media, a San Diego startup, will offer several modules for Wallop, and, at least for now, all will be free, said Alex Bard, the company's president and CEO. For Goowy, offering modules for Wallop is a way to promote itself and its Flash-based Webtop application, which includes e-mail, calendar, contacts, games, instant messaging, file storage and optional add-ins. This is the first deal of its kind for Goowy, whose executives decided to feature its work on Wallop after being impressed with the service's user interface, Bard said. "They have created a great new experience," Bard said. "They're not taking a me-too approach to social networking, and that's very smart." To address the privacy and safety concern affecting MySpace, Wallop will provide very granular access features so that members can control who has access to their profiles. Wallop also impressed Jupiter Research analyst Joe Wilcox. "It's a very different type of user experience. Instead of interacting with static Web pages, there's a lot of motion and fluidity in it. It's more alive." Now, it remains to be seen if Wallop will be able to attract a critical mass of people and if enough of them will be willing to spend money on purchasing modules for their profiles, Wilcox said. "It's not just about having a great place. You need to have people there," Wilcox said. Another interesting issue will be whether Wallop ends up competing with Microsoft's Windows Live Spaces blogging service, which has been adding social networking features. Jacob believes Wallop will appeal to a younger, more specific demographic group than does Live Spaces. Microsoft owns a stake in Wallop, which is also backed by investors like Norwest Venture Partners, Bay Partners, and Consor Capital. More information isÂ available here.
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Fox Interactive Media agreed to acquire the photo-storage site weeks after MySpace partly blocked content from Photobucket.
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Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. recently discussed swapping its MySpace social-networking site in exchange for a large stake in Yahoo, according to published reports.
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MySpace plans to announce as soon as Feb. 13 that it has formed a business incubator called SlingShot Labs to spawn Internet start-ups for News Corporation's growing empire of Web properties, which now includes The Wall Street Journal's WSJ.com as well as the video game site IGN, according to BusinessWeek. News Corp. chieftain Rupert Murdoch and [...].
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Steve Case, America Online Inc.&#39;s former chairman, bought a majority stake in Exclusive Resorts LLC, a two-year-old luxury travel company, and signed on as the company&#39;s chairman.