MySpace shoehorns its way into Facebook with iLike buy

MySpace has gained control of social music technology used on Facebook and other rival sites by acquiring iLike in a deal reported to be valued at $20m.

“The iLike acquisition advances our relentless pursuit of innovation and the need to create new distributed social experiences in music and beyond,” said MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta in a statement yesterday.

“We are deeply committed to bringing world class talent into all areas of the company and this acquisition demonstrates our focus on this objective.”

Seattle-based iLike is a popular music app used by many Facebook time wasters to boast about what music they're listening to.

The Web 2.0 company, which claims 55 million users, was founded by brothers Ali and Hadi Partovi in 2006 with $16.5m in venture capital garnered mostly from Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc.

iLike is expected, under the agreement, to retain its management team.

News Corp-owned MySpace will now be able to allow its users to share not just songs, but also videos, games and other entertainment away from the increasingly forlorn-looking site.

Facebook is the world's biggest social networking site and iLike is it's most popular app. So it's not clear what the future holds for profit-lite iLike now that it is being bought by Rupert Murdoch's gang.

Presumably, Facebook will be keen to elbow iLike, which is the firm's default music player, out of the way. All of which could open doors for, say, Last.fm or even Spotify to slip into the driving seat... bitch. ®