• The Telegraph, Wednesday, June 20, 2007 10:45 AM

News Corp. has enjoyed a good deal of publicity for its 2005 acquisition of the social network MySpace, and while it will no doubt pay for itself one day, it hasn't enjoyed the kind of wildfire revenue growth befitting a site that attracts 70 million users per month. Management is constantly looking for new ways to monetize, and the company's latest move could bring eBay into the fold.

"We will at some point offer user generated e-commerce transactions," he said. "So if you're on your site, and you have a line of T-shirts you have designed and want to sell them to your friends, we want to be able to provide you with the tools you need to do that ... we could partner certainly with someone like eBay."

This would be a welcome bit of news for eBay, which has come under fire recently for its inability to grow its core auctions business. Merging eBay's auctions or even its merchant stores with social networking would be a way to get a younger, more engaged set of Web users to buy and sell online. It would also give MySpace access to more information about its users. The move is estimated to be six to nine months down the line.

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