MySpace sale on course for mid 2011

News Corp is on course to sell its social networking unit MySpace by mid-2011, business news network CNBC reported on Monday.

The company will also lay off more than half of its staff the news network said, citing sources. A MySpace spokeswoman declined to comment. Reuters reported in November that News Corp was open to a sale of MySpace after its relaunch as an entertainment site. A successful revamp of the site -- still visited by around 60 million people a month -- was seen as possibly paving the way for a sale. MySpace, once one of the fastest growing sites on the Web, has fallen behind its much larger rival Facebook which is visited by about 150 million people monthly.