MYSPACE BUYS ILIKE!!!!

After days of mounting speculation, MySpace has confirmed it has bought social music application iLike which has a global user base of 55m.

Financial details were not made public, but it is speculated that iLike came with a $20m (£12m) price tag. MySpace, however, was at pains to stress iLike would not be altered and would sit within MySpace in general rather than its struggling MySpace Music arm.

Earlier this week it was reported that MySpace had turned off auto-play on artist sites as a means of saving money on streaming royalty payments.

Neither party was prepared to comment on what this acquisition would mean for iLike’s relationship with Facebook where 80% of its traffic is believed to come from.

This all comes as iLike increases its music offerings by launching its own download service last week and offering cheap mobile app templates for new artists.

CEO of MySpace Owen Van Natta says, “One of the great things about MySpace is that its openness enables discovery – we’re going to take that strategy one step forward by also allowing users to experience content on the distributed Web. By joining forces with iLike you should expect that we’ll be testing more things and building product that keeps both platforms highly engaging and social.”