• Step right up and take your best shot. Think you’ve got a digital music player that can compete with Apple’s iPod? Bring it. Go ahead. Others have. Look what happened to them.

Think Microsoft’s Zune or Sandisk’s Sansa.

But one of these days somebody, somewhere is going to come up with a device that trumps the iPod. It’s only a matter of time. The question is, who will that be?

Well, one contender might just be News Corp. Its MySpace could eventually be interested in developing a player to go along with the big music venture it recently launched, it seems.

“It’s possible,” MySpace co-founder and Chief Executive Chris DeWolfe said at a conference in San Francisco when asked if the company would ever develop a player, Reuters reports. He added, however, that there are no immediate plans to make or sell such a device.

The advantage MySpace might have over others that have tried is its MySpace Music site. Launched in September with major music labels such as Sony BMG Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, the site lets users access a range of new music services, including streaming, music and ringtone downloads, videos, ticketing and merchandising.

If successful, MySpace Music could be a perfect launching pad for a digital device. Think of how iTunes and the iPod currently go hand in hand.

What’s more, News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch is always looking for a new mountain to climb — just ask the Bancroft family.

Keep an eye on:

• Several big advertising agencies have been reducing staff this year — and now the layoffs are coming even more quickly (NY Times)
• Time and Newsweek say the special election issues are selling out at newstands in major metropolitan markets (NY Post)
• Regal Entertainment Group, the largest operator of movie theaters, has seen its stock cut in half over the last year, and it could have further to fall (MarketWatch.com)
• HBO has closed a seven-figure deal for U.S. rights to an untitled Barack Obama documentary. (Hollywood Reporter)

(Photo: Reuters)

One of the ways that Thomson Reuters hopes to save money after the merger closed is through real estate sales. In that spirit, it looks like change begins at home, in the city where Thomson Reuters’s world headquarters is located.

Here’s the top of a press release from real estate brokerage Cushman & Wakefield:

NEW YORK, May 6, 2008 - In one of the largest and most complex transactions completed in Manhattan this year, Cushman & Wakefield announced today that Newsweek has signed a long-term lease for approximately 163,000 square feet at 395 Hudson Street, owned by the New York City District of Carpenters Pension Fund.

The lease involved three separate parties and the swap of two floors by tenant Thomson Reuters, allowing Newsweek to lease the contiguous third and partial fourth floors of the 10-story office building in Hudson Square.

And

“This transaction allowed Thomson Reuters to consolidate and reduce office space redundancies created by the recent merger of the two companies,” said [Cushman & Wakefield Executive Vice President] Joseph Cabrera.

This is the kind of news that employees at the new company probably don’t mind hearing, even though Thomson Reuters does plan to cut an undetermined number of staff. After all, office space doesn’t mind being told they’re redundant.

(Photo: Reuters)