14 DAY TRIAL // For a while the “Google will buy Twitter” rumors were very popular and so widespread that the move seemed inevitable. While there may have been some truth to the whole thing the rumors have since died down as Google made it clear it had no intention of buying Twitter, or maybe Twitter wasn't looking to sell, and instead believed the two companies could very well work together. That hasn't stopped rumors of other companies buying the popular micro-blogging service though, but at least News Corp, owner of MySpace, made its intentions clear.
News Corp CEO and media tycoon Rupert Murdoch made it as clear as possible with a definite “No,” when asked whether he would buy Twitter and an even clearer “Hell no,” when asked about the possibility to sell MySpace, as Reuters reports. Present at the Sun Valley Media and Technology Conference yesterday, he went on to say that buying Twitter at this point would be hard to justify, even with the site's increasing popularity, as it had no clear business model and little signs it would come up with one anytime soon.
MySpace, owned by News Corp through its online division Fox Media Interactive, hasn't been exactly thriving since it was acquired by the media conglomerate in 2005 for $580 million, with massive layoffs recently, declining user numbers and, more importantly, decreasing revenue, which is expected to go down even further as the lucrative advertising deal with Google is about to expire. Murdoch was confident though that MySpace would bounce back and criticized Facebook for being “a directory” with little opportunity to make money. This despite the fact that Facebook is on track to make $500 million this year.
While it's understandable that the media tycoon would stand behind his investments, MySpace has to make some radical changes and soon if it wants another chance at the top spot and, apparently, even he knows that, having recently replaced MySpace's management team with his own people and gotten rid of cofounder and CEO Chris DeWolfe.