Newroo Job Opening Points to MySpace Digg Clone?

Nobody was particularly shocked to read the scant details about MySpace News, a rumored Digg clone that the social networking site will supposedly launch in the second quarter of 2007. Terry Heaton posted some tidbits, which he credits to "inside sources and the company's own sales materials" on The PoMo Blog, a site hosted by television branding company AR&D.

I called MySpace parent Fox Interactive Media this morning asking for a comment. They responded by saying, "MySpace will not confirm or deny or comment on products in the company pipeline."

I also dug around on some internet job listings sites for openings at FIM that could be related to MySpace News. I found one that possibly hints at this new venture: an opening for a Software Engineer in the FIM Labs/Newroo division.

FIM purchased news aggregation/meme-tracker company Newroo in 2006 while it was still in stealth mode (TechCrunch estimates the price at $7 million).

We don't know if this means anything or not, but if anyone has any information about what's going on at Newroo these days, please drop us a line. There's also this opening for a Senior Director of Product Management for Social Tools.

Software Engineer

Fox Interative Media – FIM Labs/Newroo Project

Fox Interactive Media (FIM), a start-up division of News Corporation, is seeking a Software Engineer or Senior Software Engineer to work on a series of dynamic and innovative projects.

FIM Labs designs and develops new products for the FIM Network of websites (MySpace, IGN, Scout, etc). The Newroo group???s main focus is on social interaction and communication around user's personal interests relating to news. The group is fast moving and highly focused.

Required Skills:
- Java developer experienced with large-scale web development
- Able to pick up new technologies and frameworks quickly
- Experience with POJO frameworks, in particular Hibernate and Spring
- Familiar with social software, blogs and similar technologies
- Works well independently and with a small, intense group
- Internally motivated to help create products with maximum impact

Skills that would be desirable, but not required:
- Familiarity with Wicket web framework
- Experience with web crawler systems
- Math/statistics background
- Knowledge of text processing and parsing
- Familiar with Lucene