Specific Media bought MySpace for $35 million Wednesday, The Wrap's Brent Lang and Sharon Waxman report--much less than the $100 million News Corp. had hoped to sell the social networking site for and far less than the $580 million it paid for it in 2005. News Corp will keep a stake of less than 10 percent in MySpace.

MySpace was once valued at $1 billion, All Things Digital's Kara Swisher notes, but it fell behind other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. The Wall Street Journal's Russell Adams and Emily Steel report that "Myspace will shed more than half of its staff of about 500 people, one of the people familiar with the matter said. As recently as two years ago the social-media website had a headcount of about 1,400."




 

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Elspeth Reeve