Heat shuts down Myspace

MySpace, the world's most popular networking website, has restarted after being shut down for more than half a day following a power cut.

The company blamed the closure on record-breaking heat in Los Angeles where its data servers are held. The high temperatures caused "massive power outages" a spokesman for the company said.

MySpace lets users build a personalised home page and has almost three million visitors each month. A MySpace spokesperson said: "Due to the record breaking heat in Los Angeles over the weekend the area where MySpace's servers are stored had massive power outages. With power resumed, the network is now up and running."

The spokesman said backup generators at the data centre had failed.