MySpace, Virtual Ghost Town, to be Sold For Fraction of its Cost This Week
Update: Justin Timberlake signs on as a co-owner and creative director.
Earlier: It's a done deal, with the Wall Street Journal reporting today that Specific Media made the purchase for between $30 and $40 million and that it plans to cut the 500 person MySpace workforce in half.
What becomes of the abandoned social network? Do virtual tumbleweeds blow through it? Does it become a tourist destination like Calico Ghost Town.
Do you bring your children and point out where Tila Tequila used to live? Sad, isn't it?
Associated Press reports that Fox parent News Corp. is on the verge of selling the site for a fraction of what it paid for it. The deal will go down as ...
... one of the most disastrous online acquisitions since AOL Time Warner.
AP cites sources who say the thing will be sold this week for $20 to $30 million. In what some hailed as a visionary move tuned toward the future of media, Fox Corp. bought MySpace in 2005 for $580 million.
Ah, those were the days -- when all your friends were on the site, comedian Dane Cook made MySpace jokes, and it wasn't a haven for 16-year-old jail bait and the pervs who stalk them.
Half the network's 500 employees could be cut, AP reports. Many of them are based at MySpace headquarters in Beverly Hills.
On the upside, if you're a loner and you like your (virtual) space, then this is still the place to be. Stake your claim.
First reported at 12:30 p.m. on June 28.
[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]
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