MySpace to auction off its search

Google, Yahoo! and MSN

By John Oates • Get more from this author

Posted in Financial News, 14th June 2006 09:40 GMT

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Music and networking site MySpace plans to sell off its search function to Google, Microsoft or Yahoo!

Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp paid $580m for MySpace in July 2005. Now all he needs to do is find a way to make some money from it. The site is good at collecting page impressions, but has had less success selling ads.

Chief operating officer Peter Chernin said: "We will auction off our search business to Google, Yahoo or MSN." Chernin said the company has only "scratched the surface" of how to monetise MySpace. The site claims 80m members.

News Corp may also consider buying an ad serving company. Chernin said the company was looking at various ad serving technologies to help turn page impressions into money. More from the FT here.

In only very vaguely connected news, Chernin said NewsCorp was looking to use every part of its media empire to promote the hell out of the long-awaited Simpsons movie due for release 27 July 2007. ®

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