MySpace Buys iLike

Social networking giant MySpace confirmed they were buying iLike, a hugely popular Facebook app with 10 millions users that helps recommend iTunes music and favorite bands, for $20 million.

The iLike technology will help MySpace users share songs, videos and games away from their MySpace home pages and has 55 million users worldwide.

On Facebook. The ILike app attaches itself to Apple’s iTunes music store with song recommendations, notifies fans of upcoming concerts and Twitter posts by their favorite artists and allows people to see what their friends are listening to.

iLike began selling digital music in the MP3 format on Friday and is the No. 1 referrer of customers to Ticketmaster.com.

“We believe what iLike has created isn’t limited to just music and should extend to all the areas important to MySpace users, such as entertainment, video, and games,” said MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta.

Van Natta said the iLike technology would complement its MySpace Music joint venture, a free music streaming and discovery platform it launched with major recording companies in September. The two services, however, will not be integrated right away.

He noted that MySpace Music was “doing extremely well,” with monthly visitors having nearly tripled since launch to 12.1 million in June, according to Nielsen figures.