iLike, which launched in late 2006, is a social music recommendation service that now has more than 50 million registered users. It tracks what you listen to and like and gives you recommendations on new music based on that data as well as what your friends are listening to. It’s the top music application on Facebook, Bebo, Hi5 and just about every other social network other than MySpace, which has MySpace Music. iLike also hosts band pages which are second in popularity only to MySpace Music.

From humble origins in 2003, MySpace turned the music industry on its head by changing the way a generation communicates. But even having 200 million friends and Rupert Murdoch as a boss won’t help when your website is no longer flavor of the month. MySpace’s loss of status is reflected in its usage metrics: MySpace had 124 million monthly unique visitors last month, a decline of 2 percent, according to comScore. Facebook, by contrast, had 276 million unique visitors, an increase of 16.6 percent.

By acquiring iLike, MySpace solidifies their already leading position as the most popular online identity for bands and perhaps stop the bleeding as Facebook continues to dominate the social media space.