The Mogul: Rupert Murdoch

myspace.com

Murdoch made his career—and billions—developing media properties into powerhouses. He's aiming to do it again with MySpace, the social network he bought in 2005 for a mere $580 million. Under the ownership of News Corp. (NWS), MySpace has morphed from a site where users post messages to friends and listen to unsigned bands into a full-fledged Web portal for entertainment content that pulls in an estimated $800 million per year in revenue. The site, which has more than 117 million users worldwide, has signed deals to distribute television shows and original programming and, this September, launched MySpace Music—a joint venture with the four major record labels and Indie players. Now Murdoch's challenge is to turn all the traffic and premium content into ad buys capable of competing with the likes of Yahoo.

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