When the News Corporation added MySpace to its portfolio nearly three years ago, it expected that if its base of 16 million users kept growing — and each user kept adding friends, sharing photos and swapping flirty messages — the advertising dollars would roll in, the New York Times reported.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. said its quarterly net profit rose on higher advertising sales at the Fox TV network and Fox News Channel, as well as a one-time gain from its stock swap with Liberty Media.