It Looks Like MySpace Will Finally Do Something With Newroo

I read with interest that MySpace will be launching a news site in the coming months. Given the feature set (dynamically aggregating real-time news to create focused and topical news pages, and allowing users to rate and comment on every news item and even submit and write their own stories), this sounds like they’ve finally productized the technology from Newroo, the never-launched company that was acquired by Fox Interactive, MySpace’s parent company, in early 2006 for a rumored $7 million.

This could be something completely different, and I’ll wait for Fox’s PR comment on this tomorrow before speculating too much further. But whenever MySpace makes a move, it has to be taken seriously. They’re the largest site on the Internet and can make new products successful by pure brute force (they are now the no. 2 video sharing site after YouTube).

As a massive news generating machine, this will be yet another outlet for New Corp.’s (the ultimate parent company of MySpace) content, and I assume that it will get priority over other news sources. While that may be a good thing for News Corp., it may not be what MySpace users want or need. It seems to me that the best thing for MySpace and it’s community over the long run is to become an independent entity, spun off from the prying hands of News Corp. and Fox execs. Let MySpace make business decisions that are in the best interest of it’s community, not their corporate bosses.