GONNA MAKE A TSHIRT OUT OF YOUR DREAMS

It was never likely that Rupert Murdoch's purchase of MySpace was done with the intention of providing a profit-free service to the public, but he's really expecting it to make him a fortune. Another fortune:

Speaking at a technology and media conference in Arizona, Mr Murdoch described the potential for News Corp's online businesses as "enormous", predicting revenues of $350-$400m by 2007.

"There will be millions of downloads a day probably," he told an audience at Citicorp's annual Entertainment, Media & Telecommunications Conference in Phoenix without offering further details.

He said myspace, which has around 47 million users and is growing at an estimated 1m a week, would form the kernel of News Corp's online activity, but added it would not necessarily develop in the same vein as Yahoo! or MSN, arguing that existing portals didn't reach enough under-25-year-olds.

Ah, those elusive young-limbed 16 to 25 year olds. It's far from clear if Murdoch actually understands what he's bought, or if he's really got a clue what to do with it. It is, apparent, though, that MySpace's current freewheeling image is going to come in for a bit of a battering.

Mind you, it's not like it was being run by the Easter Bunny and Sainty Claus anyway - Trent Lapinski's MySpace report fills in the sketchy backgrounds of the original MySpace owners/managers and suggests that they're basically interested in getting people to volunteer their sweet demographic and marketing details.

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