Flack to Head Up Sales at 'Toxic' MySpace

And once again, Tom Freston gets the last laugh.

MySpace -- the social networking giant that Sumner Redstone wanted so badly, he fired Freston for failing to buy it when he had the chance -- "has turned News Corp. into a toxic stock," according to Bloomberg.

Several analysts have cut their price estimates on News Corp. in the wake of the news that Fox Interactive Media, the unit that houses slow-to-monetize MySpace, will fall $100 million short of its 2008 revenue goal of $1 billion.

That setback triggered a shakeup that led to the exit of chief revenue officer Michael Barrett. But the change of command is not exactly inspiring universal confidence in the ranks. This morning, FIM named a successor for Barrett, promoting Jeff Berman from executive vice president of marketing to president of sales and marketing. (While Berman's title differs from Barrett's, most of the duties are the same.) But Berman's background is in public relations, not sales -- a fact that hasn't gone unnoticed within MySpace, even if it didn't seem to bother Rupert Murdoch. "At least we'll have good spin, if nothing else," says one insider.