BigShinyThing

Variety reports on how Rupert Murdoch’s recent internet acquisitions place his News Corp. at the centre of the latest DotCom era. The company has spent some $1.5 billion on Web properties since lauching the Fox Interactive unit back in July. News Corp. signed its third major net deal this week, buying online videogame media company IGN Entertainment for $650 million in cash.

The deal comes after the purchases of Myspace.com parent Intermix Media for $580 million and college sports site Scout Media. As Variety points out, with the reach and videogame content of IGN; social networking of Myspace; and sports, news and entertainment content from Fox properties, News Corp. could easily put together a portal that would rival the likes of Yahoo! and AOL.

The only missing piece of the puzzle is a search engine and Murdoch already rumoured to be stalking online video search company Blinkx. Wall Street is watching with interest to see where News Corp. goes with its online strategy. According to Richard Greenfield of Fulcrum Global Partners:

While other major media companies are simply extending their traditional media properties online, News Corp. is aggressively ‘buying’ its way into a more comprehensive Internet strategy. The big question now centres on what exactly is News Corp.’s overarching ‘vision’ for its news acquired Internet properties and how well/quickly will it be able to integrate all its Internet pieces.