Variety: Murdoch On a Roll (buying web properties)

[villager]

Rupe's on a roll

Murdoch's spree is turning Web heads

By JILL GOLDSMITH, BEN FRITZ

After promising to build an Internet empire, News Corp. has now spent about $1.5 billion on Web properties since the Fox Interactive Media unit launched in mid-July. News Corp. inked its third major deal in two months on Thursday, buying online vidgame media company IGN Entertainment for $650 million in cash.

Deal comes after the conglomconglom recently bought MySpace.com parent Intermix Media for $580 million and college sports site Scout Media.
Rupert Murdoch seems most interested in the huge number of eyeballs, mostly young and male, that IGN will bring. It operates a network of vidgame news and review sites, as well as movie sites Rotten Tomatoes and FilmForce and male lifestyle site AskMen.com. In addition, IGN provides online services to a number of vidgame publishers, offers games for download and recently launched an in-game advertising service.

If MySpace and IGN were integrated today, News Corp. would be the fifth most trafficked network on the Web, moving it up from a modest presence centered primarily on FoxSports.com and FoxNews.com just a few months ago.

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But the overall strategy behind the conglom's Web spending spree is not yet clear. With the reach and vidgame content of IGN; social networking capabilities of MySpace; and sports, news and entertainment content from Fox properties, News Corp. could easily put together a portal that would rival the likes of Yahoo! and AOL.

The only missing piece: a search engine. News Corp. is reported to be in talks to buy video search company Blinkx, which would give it traction in a burgeoning niche but still put it far behind Google. Murdoch has said he would spend up to $2 billion on the Internet space, potentially giving it another $500 million for Blinkx or other acquisition targets.

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(rest at www.variety.com -- subscription site )

[izzie]

1. I would say it is like the start of radio or movies,. etc

Some one will try to take it all over for profit. Do recall MGM started with one movie house in Haver hill, Ma.

[txaslftist]

2. Murdoch is a scary dude.

He owns FOX, which is (as we all know) a R/W corporate propaganda machine. If he grabs up a bunch of internet properties, pretty soon he'll be spewing his R/W crap here, tying it to his search engine, tying that into software and computers...

I figure in 10 years you will need a govt. license to host an internet site; another 10 after that and these wild days of internet 'post anything you want' will be just a fond memory for us.

(Assuming they haven't traced back all of our posts and gassed us by then, of course).

[Child_Of_Isis]

5. Really!

The next frontier for murdoch...the internet. Scary stuff.

[henslee]

3. young eyeballs are fickle. I not believe that myspace and other sites

have proven longevity. Young males flip on a dime.

[Ksec]

4. I saw where that saudi prince is buying Fox up. LOL nt

[villager]

6. yes, right here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1759728


So -- the Saudi Prince has a piece of Rupert's chunk of cyberspace! No more posting of anti-oil screeds, folks!