MySpace likes ILike

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News Corp.’s struggling social networking site MySpace today announced it has a deal to acquire ILike, an application that helps users of social networks share music recommendations and playlists.

The combination would bring together MySpace, a site emerging and established artists have long used to promote their music, with an application that allows people to introduce their friends to new music.

“The iLike acquisition advances our relentless pursuit of innovation and the need to create new distributed social experiences in music and beyond,” MySpace Chief Executive Owen Van Natta said in a statement. “We are deeply committed to bringing world class talent into all areas of the company and this acquisition demonstrates our focus on this objective.”

The acquisition comes as ILike has been poised to introduce its own music store, in cooperation with all four major music companies. Brothers Ali and Hadi Partovi founded ILike in 2006. In two years, it has attracted 55 million users -- including users on rival social networking site Facebook. It is unclear what the acquisition would mean for Facebook.

“Combining MySpace’s existing platform, reach and resources with ILike’s syndication network and social discovery tools creates the potential for truly exciting innovation,’ said ILike President Hadi Partovi.

Van Natta said the acquisition would have no immediate impact on ILike users.

-- Dawn C. Chmielewski