• Financial Times, Wednesday, May 30, 2007 11 AM

News Corporation continues its push to turn MySpace into a political force. The social network earlier this week launched a program that tracks online donations made to presidential candidates through its network. The move gives MySpace, which already hosts pages belonging to several candidates, a more prominent role in the political process, by more closely involving a generation weaned on "the Daily Show."

"We view this as we view all of our initiatives: It emanates from what our users are telling us they want," said Jeff Berman, MySpace's general manager of video and senior vice-president of public affairs. Till now, MySpace's involvement came down to user profiles and media coverage, via its news outlets; this is the first foray into fund-raising made by a major online media company. MySpace has more than 60 million users in the U.S.

The social network already offers candidates tips on how to create effective pages. The new "viral fund-raising tool" now becomes part of the package. MySpace is capping each donation at $500 per user.

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