It's official: MySpace to acquire iLike

MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta has confirmed in a Wednesday conference call that the News Corp.-owned social network has "entered into an agreement to acquire iLike," following rumors earlier in the week.

iLike's co-founders will remain at the company and stay headquartered in Seattle; the service will be "unaffected by the acquisition" in the short term.

Van Natta explained in the conference call that the acquisition is on behalf of MySpace Inc. rather than its MySpace Music division, a joint venture with the major record labels, because the company plans to extend its technology to other areas of entertainment such as gaming and possibly film. He highlighted the "discovery" technology that iLike has built and suggested that MySpace planned to integrate it into some of its other properties.

No terms of the deal were disclosed, but reports have indicated that iLike was sold at quite a bargain--something in the neighborhood of $20 million total--because its ad-supported, streaming music model failed to rake in the profits that investors hoped it would.

Van Natta denied that the deal had been delayed due to iLike board disputes or tax issues, as some reports had suggested.

But it's unclear as to how the deal will affect iLike's relationship with Facebook. The social network's developer platform has been home to much of iLike's activity, and now that it will be owned by Facebook's closest rival, there's a chance that Facebook could restrict or block the app. Van Natta, Facebook's former chief operating officer, said that iLike's apps are part of "a lot of different social networks' experience. We're excited about just continuing to expand that experience to other areas of entertainment that MySpace has assets in."

Meanwhile, Van Natta claimed that MySpace Music is "doing extremely well" and that "we absolutely expect MySpace Music to be an important part of MySpace...for years to come." Several months ago, rumors were swirling around the music industry that its performance hadn't been up to expectations.

This post was last updated at 12:13 p.m. PT.

[sodapop2k9]

Oh crap. There goes iLike. As a muscian using iLike for distribution I don't see this as a good thing.

[njjay2008]

I am shocked to see both iLike and Myspace in the same sentence since I never would have known about iLike if it wasn't for Facebook. Myspace is a joke these days as far as anyone going there anymore and my mom even uses Facebook. If I was making a site like iLike I would rather form a relationship with Facebook. As a musician, I'm going to wait to see what happens as far as a new company to come along to join forces with Facebook.

[iroq321]

"my mom even uses Facebook"

which is why i don't use facebook.

[TheBoringOne]

What's this now, this "MySpace"? What does it do?

MySpace=kids, immature young people. Facebook=Adults, mature networking!

[cnetpeter2]

They had to do something to keep up with facebook, twitter et al

[ericslick]

Myspace is a joke if you are seriously interested in reconnecting and making new friendships.

[make_or_break]

You're telling me that MySpace is still around? That is SO 2005...

Social networks are a plague on this earth. The apocalypse has indeed come.

[legend2k]

@njjay2008 same here, if it wasn't for Facebook I would have no idea what iLike is about..

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