14 DAY TRIAL // During its quarterly earnings call, News Corp. has made it clear that it is done with MySpace and that the troubled social network turned media hub will find a better home somewhere else. This is not the first time the company has made indications that MySpace is for sale, but it's the most formal announcement to date.
What's more, News Corp. said that it is in talks with several entities about the future of MySpace, though it would not provide any more details.
News Corp. didn't spell it out exactly, but it's looking to sell soon, anything more than a few months should be surprising.
The fact is, the company has been prepping up MySpace for this for the past year. While it probably didn't completely decide to sell it until relatively recently, this has been looming over the social network for the past few quarters.
For News Corp. the decision wasn't that hard though, either MySpace managed to turn the tides and start attracting visitors as well as revenue or it was going to the highest bidder.
Of course, MySpace's fortunes didn't turn around, so there is only one option left. The real questions though are who would buy the dwindling social network and for how much.
News Corp. probably doesn't expect to get too much for MySpace at this point. It paid $580 million for it in 2005, in what looked like a very savvy move.
But Facebook's rise combined with MySpace's inability to grow or at least keep users interested, spelt doom for the social network.
MySpace recently revealed a grand redesign meant to position it as a media hub rather than a social network. Hundreds of employees were also sacked recently.
"In the second quarter, the Company recorded a $275 million pre-tax charge for the impairment of goodwill related to the Digital Media Group and an organizational restructuring at Myspace," News Corp. said in its financial statement.