Cousin danah suggests that it is the market trend data over at MySpace that is leading News Corp to buy the social networking company:

Unlike the other YASNS, the value of MySpace comes from the data on media trends that is the core of what people share on that service. You have millions of American youth identifying with media and expressing their cultural values on the site. Marketers who want to understand the constantly shifting youth trends are often looking for a perch from which to be the ideal voyeur. And with MySpace, they found it. Here, youth are sharing media left right and center and forgetting that they are doing so under the watchful eye of Big Media who are certain to use this to manipulate them. Because youth believe that MySpace is a social tool for them, they are not conscious of how much data they're giving to marketers about their habits.

Hmmm. I don't know that Murdoch is really interested in the market trends so much as the growth curves at MySpace, and the 'several million' in profits it posted. My bet is that the social architecture for MySpace combined with people's passion for music represents a turning point for the music industry, and Murdoch and Co. decided to buy it before it cost billions. Moreover, the same social architecture, combined with other domains -- movies, TV, books, wine, TV, games -- could turn MySpace into the socialized replacement for Amazon, since Amazon has frittered away their lead in the space and yeilded the Web 2.0 era to others.