Valuation Justification Through Proper Buzzword Usage

Wall Street

from the sippin-on-some-syrup dept

One of the hallmarks of bubble thinking is the use of relative logic to justify ridiculous valuations. As we’ve seen, MySpace, despite all of its traffic has found it very difficult to monetize its base. In fact, the big payoff, so far, for News Corp., has been the deal it signed with Google for search services, which is a secondary aspect of the site. In spite of its challenges, a Wall St. analyst has pegged a $10-$20 billion valuation on the company, arguing that if Facebook and YouTube are worth $1 billion each, then MySpace must be worth much more. Just one problem, there’s no reason to think that either Facebook or YouTube are really worth $1 billion. Sure those numbers have been bandied about, but no company has given any indication that it’s willing to pay those prices. And certainly neither of those companies are making enough in profits to justify that price tag. In addition, the analyst thinks that due to MySpace’s size it has the potential to become an “intellectual property distribution powerhouse.” We’re not sure what that means, but we think he might be saying that the site could sell music and videos. Of course “intellectual property distribution powerhouse” sounds a lot better than “music store”, which conjures up an image of an iTunes also-ran. It does appear in retrospect that News Corp. made a smart move when it acquired the site last year, but to assign it such a big valuation, based on buzzwords and relative comparisons, seems shortsighted, particularly in a space that’s so prone to turnover.