• 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)

The financial crisis has produced no shortage of news media references to the Great Depression. Reuters News has a slideshow this week, for example, called “Ghosts of 1929.” All the talk of Dustbowl Okies and Folkies has spurred its share of stories comparing that era to 2008, including this Reuters story by yours truly.

Harvard historian Niall Ferguson contributes the latest entry in the latest edition of Time magazine, which the magazine teases on its cover with the headline, “No, this isn’t Depression 2.0. How history can help us avoid it.” The story is a must-read for anyone who remotely cares about history and money.

But… is Time having its breadline and eating it too? We ask because the headline on the cover that teases Ferguson’s article tells us it’s not the Depression — just beneath a full-cover image of the urban poor in a breadline circa 1930-something. The big headline on the page reads: “The New Hard Times.” Maybe — but not yet.

On a separate note, and speaking of soup, Campbell Soup Co said in September that it would expand its soup plant in Maxton, North Carolina, allowing it to make a line for making ready-to-serve soups and carton-packaged broths. We’re not sayin’… we’re just sayin’.