News.blog: News Corp to buy LinkedIn?

TechCrunch UK is reporting an 'unconfirmed rumour' via a 'well-placed' and 'reliable' source that the LinkedIn social network is in talks with News Corp about a possible buy out in January 2008.

That, of course, would put both LinkedIn -- considered a sort-of MySpace for the grown-up business set -- and MySpace itself under Rupert Murdoch's same corporate entity.

LinkedIn, an increasingly competitive player in the social media market, recently started allowing its members to upload a photograph to accompany their profiles and -- a la Facebook -- opened up an application programming interface to allow third-party developers to contribute to the site.