News Corp. launched a Japanese version of its MySpace social networking service Monday.The site, which has grown to become one of the most popular destinations on the English-language Internet, is already available in national versions for Australia, France, Germany, Ireland and the United Kingdom. The Japanese service becomes the sixth national version and fourth language version of the service.The site is up and running in Japanese, but at the time of this report it displayed a message telling users that it is still in test operation.MySpace Japan will be operated as a joint venture between News Corp. and Softbank, according to a report in the Monday-morning edition of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper. The two companies did not offer any comment on the newspaper report. Softbank is a large Internet and communications conglomerate in Japan whose operations include Yahoo Japan, number-three cell phone operator Softbank Mobile and the Yahoo BB broadband provider. Speaking on Monday evening in Tokyo, Rupert Murdoch, chief executive of News Corp., said he hopes to strike a deal with Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son.“Mr. Son and I are old friends, and I look forward to seeing him,” he said. Murdoch was speaking after a seminar at which he delivered a speech. “If we do anything with him, which I hope we will, in new media it certainly won’t be on an exclusive basis. We are friends. We will do things together here or in other parts of the world I’m sure, but not to the exclusion of other things.” Murdoch added, “We like the idea when we come to countries, particularly in Asia, of joint ventures.”The service will go up against a number of competitors, chief of which is Mixi, which claims about 6 million members. The company behind the site, Mixi, debuted on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in mid-September. Shares were priced at 1.55 million yen (US$13,166) and ended their first full day of trading at more than double that price. The price has come down since then, but is still above the IPO price. On Monday they closed at 2.14 million yen.-Martyn Williams, IDG News Service (Tokyo Bureau)Related Links: Report: MySpace Tops Yahoo in U.S. Page Views Is MySpace the Next Killer App in Politics? MySpace Aims to Stop Unauthorized Copyrighted-Music Posts MySpace to Sell DRM-Free Music DownloadsCheck out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage. Related content BrandPost Stay in Control of Your Data with a Secure and Compliant Sovereign Cloud By Stan Kwong Mar 23, 2023 6 mins Cloud Security Cloud Computing News Accenture to lay off 19,000 to cut costs amid economic uncertainty Technology services giant Accenture will continue to hire but meanwhile is cutting staff to streamline operations in the face of economic headwinds. By Anirban Ghoshal Mar 23, 2023 2 mins IT Consulting Services Technology Industry BrandPost Advice from procurement: How to evaluate and propose new IT investments By clearly defining needs and requirements, evaluating TCO, and performing risk assessments, procurement and IT teams can work together to help their business leaders make more informed decisions for an improved bottom line. By Bo Bradshaw, Edgio Procurement Director Mar 23, 2023 5 mins SaaS BrandPost Why AI is key to hiring and retaining developers Data shows that the opportunity to build AI-powered apps figures very prominently in where developers decide to work. By Bryan Kirschner, Vice President, Strategy at DataStax Mar 23, 2023 4 mins Artificial Intelligence IT Leadership Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe