MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe has highlighted an upside to the economic downturn for anyone left standing - digital media start-ups are on the market at knock-down prices.
DeWolfe, speaking to the Reuters Media Summit in New York late yesterday via video link, said he may look to strike some deals - but not to buy micro-blogging service Twitter.
He added that internet start-ups that had attracted lower-level valuations of $200m-$300m (£135m-£202m) just six months ago are now willing to sell up for 10% of that value.
"At the lower levels, the money dries up, everyone's looking for some kind of exit and the valuations we're seeing out there are definitely a small, small fraction of what they were even five or six months ago," DeWolfe told Reuters.
DeWolfe said that he expected valuations to become even cheaper as the economic situation continues to worsen.
He added that acquisitions are key to the growth strategy for MySpace, which Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation acquired for $580m in 2005.
However, DeWolfe said the company was not "actively interested" in a deal with Twitter.
Twitter has been under the media spotlight of late after details of ultimately fruitless talks with Facebook emerged last week.
DeWolfe said that MySpace was keen to continue expanding its operations internationally and that there "may be some opportunities on the music side at some point, but right now we don't have any particular companies directly in our sights".
He added that MySpace was cautiously optimistic about trading in 2009, despite the downturn.
"Our revenue and profits are significant and they continue to grow in spite of the poor economy. We haven't really seen any impact, other than we think we could have grown even more than we have," DeWolfe said.
"We see a lot of companies switching dollars from offline media to online media, which is good for us."
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