News Corp May Deal MySpace to Yahoo

News Corp. may be ready to sell off MySpace in an effort to gain a stake in search engine company Yahoo, British daily The Times reported Wednesday.

According to the paper, talks have already occurred with Yahoo, and Rupert Murdoch's conglomerate is looking for a 30 percent stake in the company. News Corp. also owns The Times, which initially reported the story.

Murdoch has acknowledged publicly that competitor Facebook has begun to make moves to gain ground on MySpace. Yahoo had reportedly attempted to buy the MySpace competitor last year, but talks fell through.

Similarly, Yahoo's own 360 social networking service has not been able to catch on among consumers.

MySpace may not be the only offering to Yahoo - Murdoch may have offered other Web properties as well. However, News Corp. sees great benefit from losing some control over MySpace, as it would give the company a far bigger stake in the Internet.

If the deal goes through, the company's $580 million investment in MySpace would be well worth it. Yahoo is currently worth some $37 billion, and a 30 percent stake would be valued at over $11 billion.

MySpace and Yahoo would not comment on the report.