Jon Fine comments at BusinessWeek about the new world order in new media, correctly pointing out in this current climate of Dot.bomb 2.0 M&A fever that a company like MySpace couldn’t have become MySpace if its new owner, News Corp., had tried to launch it.
"If acquiring bits and pieces isn’t budging the stock price, what will? It’s extremely difficult for an old-media player to build a serious new-media asset. There are established competitors. There are generational issues. (Myspace would not have become myspace had it been launched by News Corp.) And there are the quarterly numbers that Wall Street demands — when it’s not whacking the moguls for being too dependent on mature businesses. To move the needle right now, you need something massive. You need, for instance, to buy Yahoo. Of course, today it’s too late to buy Yahoo. Today, Yahoo buys you. Assuming, that is, that Yahoo thinks its business sense can cross the generational divide. Or that it’s even worth the bother."
