MySpace to buy social music site iLike
News Corp.-owned MySpace buys music Web site and network application, which gained popularity on Facebook and other social networks.
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| MySpace said iLike will work along side its MySpace Music unit, but will not be integrated with it. |
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Social networking site MySpace said Wednesday that it agreed to buy popular music application iLike for an undisclosed amount.
The deal marks MySpace's first purchase under Chief Executive Owen Van Natta, who took the helm in April.
Once the largest social network, the company has struggled to grow its user base since it was purchased by NewsCorp (NWS, Fortune 500) in 2005.
With 55 million total users, iLike is the most popular music application across social networks, including Facebook, which eclipsed MySpace as the world's biggest social networking Web site in 2008.
ILike allows users to share music playlists and concert alerts, as well as connecting them to concert ticket buying Web sites. Van Natta said users will not notice any immediate changes and will still be able to access the application on rival networks.
First of many deals. The MySpace CEO said on a conference call that the deal will compliment the MySpace Music unit, a joint venture with major record labels. Van Natta hopes to expand iLike into gaming and video.
"ILike provides a great experience," said Van Natta. "We want to continue to extend that to new users into other categories -- it has a broad range across other entertainment categories."
Van Natta said the iLike acquisition is just the first of many soon-to-come announcements of bringing "world-class" talent to the company.
The MySpace chief executive said he doesn't want to disrupt what iLike is doing, and will keep the company's founders, Ali and Hadi Partovi, in their current roles. However, he also said he plans on utilizing the Partovi brothers' skills in other areas of the company as well.
"MySpace's strengths have been a long-time source of inspiration for iLike," said Partovi, in a statement. "Combining MySpace's existing platform, reach and resources with iLike's syndication network and social discovery tools creates the potential for truly exciting innovation and commerce across any vertical entertainment category." 
