News Corp. buys game developer

Media monster News Corporation has bought developer Irata Labs, a San Franciscan studio best-known for Twitter game Spymaster.

Irata also made Twitter app iList Micro, which allowed users to sift through the Twitter-heap and find classified ads for sale by postcal code or category.

"The fact they built a social classified offering, iList, then they built a Twitter game - these guys have shown they can be mould-breakers with great product. And that's what we care about," said a person close to the acquisition, reported the LA Times.

News Corp. is run by Rupert Murdoch and owns IGN, MySpace, The Sun newspaper, Fox Broadcasting and lots, lots more.