News Corp's plans to sell off MySpace will come to a head this week, insiders said Tuesday night. About six companies, possibly including Vevo and Bebo's recent acquirer Criterion Capital Partners, were all expected to make bids by the end of the week. A Wall Street Journal source named an unnamed Chinese company as having talked about a deal, but it wasn't said whether this company would make the bid.
Canadian wireless and cable provider Rogers has started a new smartphone plans for entry-level smartphones, MobileSyrup reported on Thursday. The promotional plan is called an Exclusive $40 Promo Plan, and has gone into effect on January 25 for a limited, though unknown, amount of time. It requires a three-year contract and includes 200 minutes per month, 100MB of data and unlimited social networking, which grants unlimited access to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Bebo, Flickr, Photobucket and LinkedIn.
Samsung has released three new multimedia phones on Thursday, with the candy bar Shark (S5350), slider Shark 2 (S5550) and Shark 3 (S3550). Each has integrated Social Networking Services (SNS) that consist of shortcuts to social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and other favorite sites. At the same time, users can quickly upload to sites that include Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket and YouTube.
Rogers scored a minor coup tonight by becoming the first carrier in the world with the LG Eve. Also known as the GW620, the touchscreen slider is LG's first Android phone and hinges on a special Social Network Services app that pools Bebo, Facebook and Twitter updates into a single area. It simultaneously integrates those with the phone's regular contacts to tie phone, e-mail and SMS messages.
MySpace this afternoon confirmed rumors by making clear its intention to buy iLike. The deal, unofficially thought to be worth about $20 million, will give MySpace's social network control over the music service, which today lets users play and share song recommendations on sites like Facebook and also has its own fledgling downloadable music store. Existing staff at iLike should remain in the project and at their current Seattle location.
MySpace may be close to upending the music market with an acquisition of iLike, a rumor this morning suggests. More than one TechCrunch source has the social network giant buying the music recommendation and playback app for about $20 million in a deal that could be made public later this week. The purported agreement would be separate from the MySpace Music download and streaming service available today.
Social network site Facebook today announced the early stages of open access to Facebook Platform, the underpinning for the company's web application service. The company will let its existing platform serve as a reference for other sites and will allow competitors to license the company's proprietary tags and similar code, though the cost if any of a license has yet to be revealed. Expanding the code will let developers writing for Facebook export their web applications to other sites without having to significantly rewrite the code for another platform, the company says.
