In an otherwise unremarkable feature story in NYT about MySpace’s new plans, an intriguing piece of news buried towards the end: that MySpace is forming an incubator to gestate new companies. This will be a separate company, tentatively named Slingshot Labs, and will be financed by News Corp (NYSE: NWS). Chris DeWolfe, CEO of MySpace anticipates that it will nurture four or five consumer websites at a given time. Fox Interactive media, of which MySpace is a part, has had an incubator for a while, and has developed new services for MySpace.

So now instead of buying startups that survive off the MySpace economy, it will actively spur new ones to be born, just as its pace of growth is slowing down (and the competition with Facebook is white hot). Facebook’s attempt with its $10 million FB Fund has been a non-starter till now.

(The NYT story also says Chris DeWolfe gave them one of his first interviews since signing a new two-year contract with the News Corporation in October…really? We did one less than a month later, and I believe others did too.)