Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp. (NWS-A) has gone into partnership with Softbank, the Japanese technology investment group, to offer MySpace to the Japanese market, according to a report in the Financial Times. The deal is expected to be confirmed by Murdoch when he's in Tokyo at a conference.
The direct competitor in the Japanese market is Mixi, the largest online social networking community in Japan. It has around 5.7 million users at this time.
“We like the idea of joint ventures. That is certainly a possibility,” Mr Murdoch said. “Mr Son and I are old friends. We’ve kept in touch and certainly I hope to do something with Mr Son but, if we do something, it won’t be on an exclusive basis.”
The partnership would target two large Japanese markets; the online, as well as mobile phone users since networking is huge in Japan on mobile phones.
The major differentiation between the two services is that Mixi is by invitation only, while MySpace is able to be accessed by anyone.
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