Is it actually possible to have a stock bubble without a public market? It certainly looks like it. Myspace and Facebook, the two leading social networks, are both private: one a unit of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation; the other controlled by its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, and venture capitalists. But that hasn't stopped the two exuberantly growing rivals, the hottest new internet companies since Google, from talking up their valuations. Rupert Murdoch, whose company acquired Myspace for $580m in 2005, boasted the company had grown tenfold in value; not to be outdone, Peter Thiel, the financier who put the first significant investment in the college social network, said he wouldn't sell Facebook for less than $8bn. The latest one-upmanship: the rumored approach by News Corporation to Yahoo, a proposal to merge their internet assets, implies a value on Myspace of $12bn, double the number News Corporation was touting six months ago. At this rate, we'll experience the inflation of expectations, and the burst of the bubble -- before retail investors even discover the wonders of Facebook apps.[IMG]http://feeds.gawker.com/~a/valleywag/full?i=CpKXuS[/IMG]
