• Reuters, Tuesday, December 2, 2008 12:15 PM

MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe thinks his company will grow its advertising revenue in 2009 despite the global recession. "Our revenue and profits are significant and they continue to grow," DeWolfe said at the Reuters Media Summit in Los Angeles. As for the deepening economic crisis, he added, "We haven't really seen any impact, other than we think we could have grown even more than we have." MySpace revenues grew 18% in the third quarter.

The social networking giant has been successful in implementing new advertising systems like MyAds, a behavioral targeting system for small businesses that DeWolfe says now has more than 9,000 advertisers. MySpace has always been ad-supported, although DeWolfe said the company would not rule out the possibility of adding subscription-based services to the site. However, "the core service on MySpace will always be free," he said.

As research companies slash their online advertising forecasts, DeWolfe sees the opportunity to buy startups for significantly less than six months ago. He said companies that were once worth up to $300 million are now willing to sell themselves for as little as $20 million. "Certainly we're interested in expanding in key markets internationally and there may be some opportunities on the music side at some point, but right now we don't have any particular companies directly in our sights," DeWolfe said.

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