MySpace to Launch in Japan With Softbank

Posted 06 November 2006 @ 09:03 am EET     Print     Reprint     E-Mail     Comments

TOKYO (Reuters) - News Corp.'s MySpace.com online service will be launched in Japan in a joint venture with Internet and telecoms group Softbank Corp., the Nihon Keizai business daily reported on Monday.

The 50-50 venture, to be called MySpace Japan, will first offer services for personal computers and later allow users to post photos and write blogs via cellphones, the paper said.

The two firms, which jointly took a stake in a Japanese TV station in 1996, are expected to announce the deal as early as this week after a meeting between News Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch and Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, it said.

The venture will be based on a capital of about 1 billion yen ($8.5 million), the newspaper said.
Softbank spokesman Takeaki Nukii declined to comment.

Shares of Mixi Inc., Japan's most popular online social network site, tumbled 5 percent to 2.14 million yen due to investor concerns about a new competitor.

Softbank's shares fell 1.2 percent to 2,410 yen, while the benchmark Nikkei average was up 0.1 percent.

News Corp. bought MySpace.com, which is popular with teenagers, last year for an estimated $580 million and has transformed it into one of the Internet's fastest-growing properties with more than 100 million users worldwide.

Such online services have also been gaining popularity in Japan.

Mixi, whose shares debuted on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in September, has quintupled its users since August of last year. Softbank's Internet arm, Yahoo Japan Corp., also offers an online network service.

A research note by UBS said in June that News Corp. and Softbank would set up a joint venture to launch MySpace.com in Japan by mid-September, citing comments by Murdoch. News Corp. declined to comment at the time.

Murdoch, who is on a visit to Tokyo, will be giving a speech at a conference on an unrelated topic at 5 p.m. Japan time (0800 GMT).