Justin Timberlake, Ad Group Buy MySpace for $35M

The hottest website of 2006 now belongs in part to one of that year's hottest stars. Justin Timberlake has teamed up with digital advertising agency Specific Media to take MySpace off the hands of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, reports the Telegraph. Insiders say the fallen giant of social networks, which News Corp purchased for $580 million in 2005, was sold for just $35 million, most of that in Specific Media stock.

Since the buy, News Corp has lost a total of $1.4 billion on the business segment that houses MySpace, and analysts say walking away was the right move, AP notes. The site, whose own founders no longer use it, will be revitalized with a focus on music, its new owners say. "There's a need for a place where fans can go to interact with their favorite entertainers, listen to music, watch videos, share and discover cool stuff and just connect," said Timberlake, who played Napster co-founder Sean Parker in The Social Network. "MySpace has the potential to be that place." (More Specific Media stories.)