MySpace is planning to launch a Japanese version of the site for Japanese users. According to Japanese media, this will be an $8.5 million venture that will be jointly run by MySpace owners News Corp and Japanese Internet company Softbank. Yahoo! Japan incidentally is a subsidiary of Softbank and has about 10 million users.

There is a growing market for social networks in Japan which has seen a phenomenal growth in the number of user. Mixi, the most popular Japanese social network site registered a five-fold increase in the number of members in the past one year itself.

Japanese business newspaper Nihon Keizai reports that News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch was in Tokyo today and is expected to hold talks with Masayosi Son, the president of Softbank.

I wonder if China had open and independent Internet policies for the Chinese internet users, MySpace could have entered into the Chinese market before it did in Japan.

News: BBCNews.com