News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) may swap its popular social networking site for a stake in Yahoo! Inc. according to a published report.

Late Wednesday, the London Times. reported that its parent company, News Corp., was looking into a possible marriage between its popular Myspace website and Yahoo web properties. In exchange, the company is seeking 30 percent ownership.

Neither company has confirmed the newspaper report, published Wednesday, which quotes unnamed sources.

News Corp., under guidance of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, purchased the social networking site for $580 million in 2005. It has since garnered a lion's share of social network visitors, taking nearly 80 percent of all traffic as of April, according to research firm, Hitwise.

Based on Wednesday trading, Yahoo had a market value of about $37 billion. That indicates News Corp. believes MySpace is now worth more than $10 billion, based on a 30 percent stake in Yahoo.

Shares in Yahoo! rose 5 cents, or 0.18 percent, to $27.71 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market, while News Corp. fell 1 cent to $23.59 on the New York Stock Exchange.

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