AOL, Yahoo, MySpace. All three are one-time Internet superstars that lost their glimmer as competitors emerged. AOL continues to reorganize. Yahoo is shuttering services. And MySpace may be selling itself.
MySpace this week announced plans to lay off about half its employees. In the wake of the terminations — about 500 are leaving the company — MySpace CEO Mike Jones tried to position the move in a positive light.
It didn’t work. The rumor mill immediately started churning about who would buy MySpace. Then MySpace confirmed that a sale is a possibility.
“News Corp. is assessing a number of possibilities, including a sale, a merger, and a spinout,” Rosabel Tao, a spokesperson for MySpace, told Bloomberg. “The process has just started.”
Google a Suitor?
News Corp. bought MySpace in 2005 for $580 million. How much News Corp. could sell what’s left of the assets is speculative. There has been talk about spinning MySpace off as a private company and selling stock options to employees, but without strong management the company seems unlikely to pull out of its rut. Google is one name that has been thrown around in acquisition talks.
“The News Corp. CFO had implied that it might sell MySpace a few months ago. At the right price there would be buyers, including Google, potentially,” said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. “Google was a potential buyer of MySpace the first time, but balked at the price tag. But there might be a fire sale now. The brand has been damaged and has lost much of its cool. But strong management might be able to resuscitate it.”
Google couldn’t immediately be reached for comment, but there are ties between MySpace and Google. The two companies in December announced a multiyear agreement to renew and expand their search and advertising relationship. Under the terms…