Looks like the now infamous Internet "Mea Culpa" Speech was only Rupert Murdoch's warm up act. Earlier in the week, Fox revealed its plans for a new interactive division to be headed up by former online sports impresario Ross Levinsohn. So how does Newscorp planned acquisition of Intermix Media, which owns the community network MySpace.com fit in its broader portal ambitions?

Although the media coverage to date has focused heavily on the traffic Fox will acquire as a result of the transaction - the key asset that MySpace brings to its new parent is community connections rather than raw eyeballs. Online community is a fickle phenemenon - difficult to nurture and often precarious to transplant. Fox has a wealth of entertainment, sports and news related content brands to exploit online. But if MSN and Yahoo are any indication - creating a loyal online audience also requires a solid base of application and community based tools. The messaging and email market are well and truly saturated. With Friendster in decline, Yahoo's 360 service in slow uptake and Google's Orkut floundering in relative obscurity - a strong social networking acquisition appears both logical and timely.

However integrating a popular community network like MySpace with the diverse collection of Fox content brands, and the numerous other online acquisitions that are bound to follow this one - will be no easy task. The great strength of Yahoo has been the seamless integration of its user registration and predicative personalisation tools. In no small way, this approach to individual user preferences and their interconnected relationships with other web users has been the bedrock of Yahoo's successful foray into new fields such as streaming and entertainment related content.

Time will tell if the Fox will be as quick.