MySpace seen as place for videogames

News Corp. hopes to transform MySpace, which has been losing users to Facebook, into a stronger online videogaming platform as it works to reposition the six-year-old site as an entertainment destination.

News Corp. digital head Jonathan Miller said he wants to expand the videogame platform on his company's sagging social networking site, which lags Facebook in number of users.

At the Fortune Brainstorm: Tech conference in Pasadena, California, Mr Miller said he saw opportunities to make MySpace's gaming platform better geared to videogame suppliers who then will want to launch their products on the site and employ its user data to better develop games.

"MySpace is and will be more in the future a gaming platform, a space for people to meet and play games," added Mr Miller.

Analysts have been doubtful on MySpace's entertainment drive, given that Google's YouTube dominates the user-generated video content space, while professional video is led by Hulu.

That leaves gaming. A focus on videogames could help MySpace revitalise itself and better compete against Facebook, which recently surpassed 200 million active users and has vaulted ahead of MySpace.

Facebook had more than 307 million unique visitors in April, while MySpace had less than 125 million, according to comScore.

Last month, Facebook surpassed Myspace's peak number of unique monthly users in the US, 76.3 million, set in October 2008, according to the research house.