14 DAY TRIAL // There have been rumors about talks being had by News Corp and LinkedIn, concerning a possible takeover by the first of the latter. Basically, they turned out to be bogus, the only issues brought into conversation being future partnerships. (Yawns) Booooring! That's too bad, too, because, as Duncan Riley of TechCrunch.com said, "With the Dow Jones (Wall Street Journal) acquisition being finalized a partnership between News Corp and LinkedIn would make a lot of sense; the premium business sites from Dow Jones provide a high-wealth business focused demographic that would sit well with LinkedIn's business networking product."
Instead, the deal that apparently did go through was News Corp acquiring the New York based religious community site, Beliefnet, as reported at FishbowlNY. I should think that's really interesting, I wonder what impact will that have on The Simpsons or other such non-religious shows that are currently being run by the media giant.
According to Wikipedia, "Beliefnet or Beliefnet.com is a large spiritual site on the web. It provides information about various religious and spiritual beliefs, ranging from Christian denominations to atheism to smaller faiths like Zoroastrianism. It interviews religious figures, offers articles and blogs on various creeds. It collaborates with Newsweek on a column. It has a study guide for the Bible. Beliefnet is a large multi-faith e-community. It aims to provide a free forum for religious information and inspiration, spiritual tools, and discussions and dialogue groups. Not affiliated with a particular religion or spiritual movement, Beliefnet, Inc., is a privately held company funded by employees, individual investors, and Blue Chip Venture Company." According to earlier reports, around 70% of the site's traffic is related to Christian interests, with around 70% of users being females, and the most popular age group being 35 to 45.
It's a strange twist in the plot and the way the people at News Corp have chosen to "suck up" to God is funny, in my opinion. But hey, that's just me, I haven't been buying pardons, it went against my beliefs.