MySpace to make friends with eBay

18-06-2007

by The Register

MySpace founder Chris DeWolfe has hinted the Murdoch-owned social network will bring in eBay to provide it with e-commerce features.

The Telegraph reports DeWolfe said: "If you're on your site and you have a line of T-shirts you have designed and you want to sell them to your friends, we want to be able to provide you with the tools you need to do that.

"So we could partner certainly with someone like eBay to do that. We haven't decided yet, but it would be probably a good bet that someone like eBay could be a good partner."

Talks between the pair have been rumoured for several months, and a deal will involve eBay funneling a large chunk of revenues from MySpace deals back to News Corp.

Access to MySpace's massive traffic would be hugely valuable for eBay, whose PayPal tentacle is facing competition from Google Checkout. Tensions spilled over last week in a high-profile spat over a party Google wanted to throw on the fringes of an eBay partner event, prompting eBay to withdraw its USD100 million advertising.

To further thicken the plot, Google splurged USD900 million last year on the rights to run the MySpace search box, and has presumably been in the running to boss the T-shirt stall.

In contrast, rather than ink exclusive arrangements, so-hot-right-now MySpace rival Facebook has opened itself up to allow traders like Amazon to run on top. It has also built its own eBay-challenging Marketplace feature for classifieds, though the ability to make payments could still be up for grabs.

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