News Corp stalks the corridors of search

14 February 2008

Rupert Murdoch is reportedly eyeing a significant stake in Yahoo, in return for a portion of his News Corporation's online portfolio.

According to the News Corp-owned Wall Street Journal, Murdoch and Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang have been in talks that could see MySpace and several other sites "swapped" for a 20% stake in Yahoo.

The proposal reportedly values Yahoo at $50 billion, rather higher than the $44.6 billion bid by Microsoft that Yahoo rejected earlier this week.

Writing at Guardian.co.uk, Chris Tryhorn wondered if the alleged link-up could help fire up Yahoo's role in social networks.

"Yahoo has been perceived as falling behind in social networking – so it may relish access to MySpace, as well as bringing expertise that could breathe new life into the site, which remains the global leader in its field but has appeared less agile and tech-savvy than the likes of its rival Facebook."

Category: MSN, Search engines, Social media, Video sharing, Yahoo