Guardian Unlimited comments on News Corporation turning down the $150m asking price for Digg. They suggest that in this ‘mini-boom’ of Web 2.0, purchase prices are cooling and/or potential buyers are more wary.

In News Corporation’s instance, I don’t believe this to be the case. Instead, I think News Corporation purchased MySpace, and now thinks: “Bugger.. now what do we do with it?” Signs of cluelessness are indicated by Fox running crap TV shows via MySpace, that are only temporarily on-line, and that require the download of a custom player. News Corporation isn’t going to pay lots of money for something else it might end up not knowing what do to with.

With respect to MySpace, News Corporation purchased an Audience, not a Product or a Service. But although this audience is attached to MySpace, members are more interested in each other, and demonstrating to each other that they know each other. It’s a social thing, obviously.

TV shows are too, but MySpace hasn’t the tools for people to be social about TV shows. All you need is a forum dedicated to the show, and one thread for each episode. MySpace has neither. Advertising streams could be targeted to specific shows, and even to specific episodes, run alongside the forums. Music for each episode could be made available for purchase; linking to specific iTunes mixes even. Provide the ability to pre-order DVDs. Advertise goods and services that appear on the specific episodes.

Is this really too difficult?