MySpace News is the result of Fox Interactive Media’s (the division of News Corp. that owns Myspace) purchase of NewRoo last year. Newroo was formerly a site helping users customize their own news aggregator service. Former Brown University students Dan Gould and Brian Norgard started NewRoo in an attempt to organize more specific categories of stories than Digg or Yahoo News.

The creators had moved to San Francisco to seek investors when Fox called. This is the first project Fox has integrated into MySpace via an acquisition.

News Corp. bought MySpace in 2005 and has been looking to increase revenue from it since. Advertisers have remained reluctant to spend much on ads to be placed on people’s sometimes-provocative personal profiles. This has made it difficult to increase revenue, as profiles make up MySpace’s main content.

“The response from advertisers so far has been fantastic,” said Norgard. “Every advertiser wants to reach a specific customer and we are helping them to do that through these [news] channels.”

MySpace founder Tom Anderson expects the service to start small. Later, perhaps, users will have the option of being greeted by the top stories upon logging in, as well as the option of commenting on articles.

Stories on MySpace News will consist of a headline, a summary paragraph, and a link to the full story. Executives at Fox Interactive Media said that they expected major stories to rank highest, and entertainment and gossip to take their place on slow news days.

Source: LA Times through Poynter Online, Financial Times through Ifra Executive News Service