Report: News Corp. offers MySpace for Yahoo stake
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(InfoWorld) - News Corp. recently discussed swapping its MySpace social-networking site in exchange for a large stake in Yahoo, according to published reports. However, the status of the discussions remains uncertain because News Corp. made the proposal before Terry Semel resigned on Monday as Yahoo's chairman and CEO, according to reports published Wednesday by The New York Times and the U.K. Times. Both newspapers attributed the information to anonymous sources. The New York Times reported that News Corp. discussed with Yahoo the idea of giving up MySpace in exchange for a 25 percent stake in the Sunnyvale, California Internet giant. Meanwhile, the U.K. Times said News Corp. told Yahoo it wanted a 30-percent stake for MySpace. With Yahoo's market capitalization at $37.7 billion mid-morning Wednesday, the deal would put MySpace's value at between $9.4 billion and $11.3 billion. News Corp. bought MySpace along with other Internet properties for $580 million when it acquired Intermix MediaInc. in July 2005. The U.K. Times, which is owned by News Corp., reported that its parent company is interested in the Yahoo stake as a way to gain "exposure to a far larger Internet-based business." The New York Times characterized News Corp.'s overture as "informal" and as a "loose proposal" that hasn't generated "meaningful negotiations." The U.K. Times called the discussions "tentative" and potentially closed now that Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang has become its CEO. Yahoo reportedlyÂ tried unsuccessfully to buyÂ social-networking site Facebook for $1 billion last year. In May of this year, the U.K.'s Sunday Telegraph reported that Yahoo had expressedÂ interest in buying social-networking site BeboÂ for the same amount. Yahoo executives have in the past year publicly acknowledged the company is weak in the social-networking space, ruled currently by MySpace. In the U.S., MySpace attracted almost 80 percent of all visits to social-networking sites in April, followed in a very distant second place by Facebook with 11.5 percent, according to Hitwise. Bebo came in third place with 1.3 percent of visits. Yahoo 360, the company's social-networking site, took seventh place with 0.71 percent. News Corp. declined to comment about Wednesday's reports. Yahoo didn't immediately respond to requests seeking comment. Â
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Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is in talks with Yahoo about a possible deal, according to a press report.
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The Wall Street Journal says Microsoft has proposed an investment that would give it a stake of up to 5 percent in Facebook.
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Social-networking site Facebook is in  serious talks to sell itself to Yahoo  for an amount  that could approach $1 billion, The Wall Street Journal  reported on Thursday.
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Yahoo&#39;s board of directors plans to reject&#160;Microsoft&#39;s unsolicited $44.6 billion takeover bid,&#160;The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday, citing as its source &quot;a person familiar with the situation.&quot;According to the report, the source said the Yahoo board has determined that the $31-per-share offer &quot;massively&#160;undervalues&quot; the online services company. In addition, Microsoft&#39;s buyout bid doesn&#39;t take into consideration the business risks that Yahoo would be taking if it entered into an agreement that in the end might not be approved by government regulators, the source told the Journal.According to the Journal, Yahoo&#39;s board intends to send Microsoft a letter on Monday, detailing its position.A Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment on the report today. &quot;We are not providing details on the board&#39;s review process,&quot; she wrote. &quot;Yahoo&#39;s board is carefully and thoroughly evaluating the Microsoft proposal in the context of all of the company&#39;s strategic alternatives, and will pursue the best course of action to maximize long-term value for shareholders.&quot;Microsoft, which announced its offer for Yahoo on Feb. 1, couldn&#39;t be reached for comment today. The offer is a combined cash-and-stock deal; in announcing the bid, Microsoft said Yahoo shareholders could choose to receive either cash or Microsoft stock, although it added that the total consideration would be equally split between the two forms of payment.Yesterday, published reports said that Yahoo&#39;s board was meeting to discuss the offer.Yahoo is still evaluating other options,&#160;including a search advertising partnership with Google, according to today&#39;s report by the Journal. It also may still be open to a longer negotiation with Microsoft: The Journal said it was told by the source that Yahoo would be unlikely to consider any offers below $40 per share.If so, that would require Microsoft to raise its original offer by at least 29 percent, or about $13 billion. In other words, the cost for Microsoft to become a more credible rival to Google in the search and online advertising markets could start at about $57.6 billion.Google has been doing what it can to scuttle the Microsoft takeover bid, including playing the antitrust card by asking, in a blog post by one of its executives last Monday, whether Microsoft might &quot;attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC?&quot;Microsoft quickly shot back, issuing a statement saying that a combination of it and Yahoo merger would &quot;create a more competitive marketplace.&quot;(Eric Lai contributed to this story.)Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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The Motley Fool - Yesterday, I wrote about how everyone and their neighbor seems to gunning for a slice of Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL - News) iPod and iTunes business. And while I still believe it's possible for News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS - News) MySpace, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT - News), and Sony (NYSE: SNE - News) to erode some of Apple's market share for downloadable music, I don't expect the company to passively stand by as revenues drop.
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News Corp. is "in very  active negotiations with all the media companies" to bring  their content to its MySpace property, the firm's top  interactive-media executive said Wednesday.
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News Corp.'s 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. Chief Executive  Edward Tian, the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site  on Friday.
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InfoWorld - Yahoo may team up with News Corp. to fend offÂ Microsoft's bid to buy the struggling Web portal, according to a Wall Street Journal report on Wednesday.
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Also: MySpace founder aims to thwart Murdoch's WSJ bid.
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News Corp. will probably end subscription fees at WSJ.com and will open the MySpace social-networking website to developers in a push to add readers and advertisers, chairman Rupert Murdoch said.
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Yahoo has apparently offered $900 million for social networking site Facebook, media reports indicate. The offer is still being considered and negotiations said to be ongoing.
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News Corp. (NWS) may soon allow members of its MySpace Web site to embed Fox TV shows and other Fox video on their home pages, marking a huge step toward generating greater revenue from the world's largest social networking site.
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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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Dow Jones & Co Inc.  said on Tuesday that its board was prepared to recommend that its shareholders accept a $5 billion buyout offer from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. .
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Dow Jones & Co. Inc. and Rupert  Murdoch&#39;s News Corp. are close to a pact that would protect the  journalistic independence of The Wall Street Journal if News  Corp. acquired the media company, according to newspaper  reports on Sunday.
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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¦