myspace

MySpace's first foray into Facebook Connect

Update: We're now hearing that Fan Video might not actually be the start of a massive Facebook Connect implementation on MySpace, but rather a one-off marketing activity for MySpace Music. We will have to keep an eye on how this develops.

MySpace's rumored adoption of Facebook Connect may be coming to fruition with the first implementation, called "Fan Video" being launched.

Once logged into Facebook on the Fan Video page, the app allows you to mashup a selection of eight music videos that prominently feature your Facebook profile picture. Once you make your mashup, you can … Read more

Pingdom: Facebook is killing it on page views

Wow. Numbers crunched by traffic and uptime firm Pingdom indicate that Facebook is absolutely crushing the rest of the social Web in terms of monthly page views. With about 260 billion page views, the sprawling social network's page view count is 11 times bigger than the second-place entry, News Corp.-owned MySpace. It's also 59 times higher than Twitter's, which comes in fourth. (Social network and gaming site Hi5 is third; Friendster, which was recently sold to a Malaysian tech company, is in fifth.)

These numbers are a testament to Facebook's phenomenal growth: remember, as late … Read more

Flixster/Rotten Tomatoes/MySpace mystery solved

I recently wrote about interest by News Corp. and its MySpace unit in Flixster, the popular social-networking site for movies.

Titled "MySpace and News Corp. Eye Flixster (But for What?)," I wrote:

Whether this is an acquisition or more of a larger partnership deal with News Corp. digital entertainment sites is unclear. Several sources said a purchase was a possibility, while others talked about a more complex deal that did not necessarily mean a purchase.

Sources said any such deal is not imminent, but that News Corp. itself has been conducting extensive due diligence on the San Francisco-based … Read more

MySpace eyes Flixster for acquisition

Now that the digital equivalent of a super-vac, MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta, has sucked up some decent music start-ups--Imeem and iLike--for a song, to bolster the social-networking site's efforts to expand into an entertainment portal, what's next?

According to several sources, the News Corp. unit has turned its omnivorous attentions on Flixster, the popular social-networking site for movies.

Sources said such a deal is not immediately imminent, but that MySpace has been conducting extensive due diligence on the San Francisco-based Flixster, part of a plan to combine it with Rotten Tomatoes, another News Corp.-owned site run … Read more

MySpace launches new developer tools

Not willing to let Facebook and Twitter completely own the market for searchable, up-to-the-minute information, MySpace announced on Wednesday a set of new developer application programming interfaces (APIs) designed to let third-party sites access more of its content.

The new APIs offer a variety of features: letting third-party sites tap into MySpace members' status and "mood" updates, incorporate real-time activity information (this is something we saw implemented earlier this week in Google's real-time search announcement), upload photos to MySpace from external services, and make public MySpace content more searchable.

Developer announcements used to come out of MySpace regularly … Read more

MySpace buries Imeem

Here's an interesting study in contrasts. When MySpace acquired iLike back in August, MySpace left the site mostly intact. The iLike home page is still there, you can still add iLike's music-finding and sharing application to your Facebook page, and iLike is given prominent placement in Google search results for music-related queries, thanks to an October deal between MySpace and Google. (That deal also included several other companies.)

On Tuesday, MySpace completed its acquisition of Imeem, a service that used to let users upload music and videos and share playlists. In the press release announcing the finalization of … Read more

Google hopes to turn the river into a canal

Before too long, expect to find anything that anyone puts on the Internet on Google within seconds: with luck, it might even be useful.

Real-time search has come to Google. The company has been hinting at this day for several months, most recently when it announced a deal to access Twitter's "firehose" of data. But it presented its vision for real-time search before the media Monday at the Computer History Museum, claiming to have made a little history on its own.

Over the next few days, Google users will start to notice a box called "Latest … Read more

Report: MySpace to adopt Facebook Connect

MySpace's rumored adoption of Facebook Connect could be happening in the near future--as soon as early 2010, Inside Facebook reports.

MySpace and Facebook have historically been rivals, with Facebook having ousted MySpace from their spot as the top social network, but their relations have been of a friendlier nature as of late. It appears as though MySpace has effectively given up on winning the social-networking war and is instead focusing on its already strong entertainment business, which includes the market leader, MySpace Music.

The extent of MySpace's Facebook Connect integration isn't yet known, but it is expected … Read more

Apple in 'advanced' acquisition talks with Lala

Update 1:32 p.m. PST to include some of the reasons sources say Apple is interested in Lala.

Apple is close to acquiring digital-music service Lala, according to two sources with knowledge of the discussions.

Talks are very advanced, the sources said Friday. One said that the sides have already agreed on terms and have only to sign a final agreement. (Update 6:21 p.m. PST: The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are reporting that Apple and Lala have struck a deal.)

Steve Dowling, Apple's spokesman, said the company doesn't comment on rumors and … Read more