MySpace is to found a business incubator venture that will set up and develop new consumer websites. According to a New York Times interview with MySpace founder and CEO, Chris DeWolfe, the new venture is provisionally named Slingshot Labs. The new company will be financed by News Corp, but will function like a startup, operating independently and working to build-up four or five consumer websites at a time.

The plan follows an initiative, launched by social network rival, Facebook, in Sep 2007 offering up to USD250,000 to developers or startups wishing to build applications on its platform. Whilst only nurturing companies that directly fed into the site, the money was part of a total USD10m fund, made available by Accel Partners and the Founders Fund.

The Slingshot Labs revelation was made by DeWolfe whilst discussing other, more publicised, evolutions of the MySpace site. These include signing musicians to a MySpace record label, developing online video series and a forthcoming feature that will let users tailor their profile for friends and professional contacts, so that they will see differing pages. Earlier this month, HitWise released statistics showing that MySpace accounted for 72.32% of all US visits to major social networks in 2007. Facebook ranked second with 16.03% of the visits. DeWolfe and MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson both signed new contracts in Oct 2007, setting their annual salaries at a reported USD7.5m, making them two of the highest-paid News Corp employees.