News Corp. Seeks Online Job Security

News Corp. (NYSE:NWS) seems to be trying to make up for lost time when it comes to its Internet properties. Most recently, it's taken a stake in a Web service called Simply Hired. Although there's understandable logic in this maneuver, it's not exactly moving into virgin territory.

In the last year or so, Rupert Murdoch's conglomerate has repeatedly aimed to more fully embrace the Internet. Most prominently, it purchased the wildly popular social networking site MySpace.com, and in January, News Corp. revealed plans to transform MySpace into a multipurpose Web portal like such Internet veterans as Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO), Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) MSN, and Time Warner's (NYSE:TWX) AOL. Music's a no-brainer at MySpace, and video on demand is on the agenda as well.

Now, News Corp. has snapped up a $3.5 million stake (described by CNN as "substantial") in Simply Hired, a site that culls listings from thousands of employment sites like Craigslist and Monster.com (NASDAQ:MNST), as well as newspaper classified ads. Simply Hired will be integrated across News Corp.'s sites, including the Fox sites.

Although job searching has long been a powerful draw for Web surfers, there are plenty of entrenched competitors. Let's face it, Simply Hired isn't a household name -- today's news was the first I'd ever heard of it. Not only is Craigslist a strong contender, but there are also other well-branded names like Monster and Yahoo!'s HotJobs to contend with. Furthermore, Simply Hired is essentially a search engine, and given Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) rapid rate of drilling into all things search-related, it's wise to wonder whether Simply Hired has a deep enough moat to fend off intruders.

On the other hand, of course, Simply Hired could be greatly helped by News Corp.'s Internet crown jewel, MySpace. The most recent data from Amazon.com's Alexa traffic-ranking service identifies MySpace as the fifth-most-visited site on the Internet, and while many MySpace users are young teens who are hardly interested in their upward mobility, there are also plenty of users who could very well use some job-search help in their post-college years.

Whether News Corp.'s cash infusion in Simply Hired will be money well spent is debatable, but shareholders should expect more of the same. News Corp. has previously said that it has earmarked more than a billion dollars for Internet-related deals, so $3.5 million is just a drop in the bucket. Furthermore, when it comes to the Internet, News Corp. has a lot of catching up to do. While MySpace's current popularity is impressive -- although social-networking sites can attract fickle audiences, as once-cool Friendster discovered -- playing catch-up on the Internet seems more difficult in an arena with so many active, veteran competitors.

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Alyce Lomax does not own shares of any of the companies mentioned.