We already told you it was coming, then apologized for doubting its author. And here's the sentence from Warren St. John's NYT piece on Silicon Alley that tells us why, this time, it's for real: Nerve has "half the staff, half the buzz, and more than five times the revenue."

While we're on the topic of Internet company valuation, here's how iVillage isn't really worth $700 million. But the "strong buy" recommendation from JMP Securities certainly has helped get it up higher than the Reuters story says.

Daily Candy is on the block, with a Wall Street Journal-provided price tag of $100 million. Figures no doubt leaked from the lips of Bob Pittman himself include 60% margins and a target of $20 million in revenue this year. That popping sound you just heard was the sudden rise in everyone else's valuations...

Inc. isn't a public company, but one can reliably expect the inner workings of its financials to be splashed in the media gossip columns on a quarterly basis now that the magazine and its corporate sibling Fast Company have adopted "open book management." You may have missed the news — it first appeared in Joe Nocera's Saturday New York Times column, and it's already behind the "Time Select" wall now — but Inc., now under the ownership of former cover subject Joe Mansueto has chosen once again to practice what it preaches — that opening the kimono to your employees empowers them to do something about your financial status (which in Inc.'s and Fast Company's case was a $10 million loss last year) rather than just steal office supplies and file expeneses.

This is the second time in the last six months that former Inc. editor and now CEO John Koten and star writer Bo Burlingham have taken introspection to the Nth degree. Burlingham, who has just published a book, a "Small Giants," praising open book managed companies, also wrote the magazine's cover story last September about its own sale by Gruner + Jahr to Mansueto. That truly remarkable story kicked off with now-Time Inc. editor-in-chief John Huey telling Koten that if his company bought the magazine, he'd fire all of his employees.

Koten noted in that issue that "We don't plan to make a habit of writing about ourselves," but can one hope that the current editors of both magazines will change their minds — or let the Keith Kellys of the world do it for them.

Bear with us as Fishbowl takes yet another trip to New Haven, courtesy of Fishtern Maureen Miller:

Not five months to my graduation, and I learn my ol' writing professor Steve Brill is giving a million (or more!) to advance the study of journalism at Yale. Within the year, Brill's endowment will allow selected Yale scholars to take classes and internships in which they can write at more length and, well, have an excuse to study journalism at all. So what have I been doing for four years, Steve, slaving my way through our barely nascent non-fiction department for peanuts?!

End bitterness. Moving on.

"We need more better people in journalism," Brill explains to the New York Times's Karen Arenson, if not with exact grammatical precision (and please don't kill me for pointing that out). First, context: Yale is home to a very infamous selective program for poli sci students, "Grand Strategies," sort of a training ground for future policy wonks and whiz kids and a pet cause of David Brooks. Brill's program seems a pretty self-conscious adaptation of the model for journalists, so this -- and forgive me for being unforgivably elitist and myopic (or wrong, Bob Kaiser) -- could potentially be a pretty big deal.

So more power to Brill, I guess. For the last five years, he's been teaching a seminar to some of my more better classmates, and it's fun to imagine what the new "Yale Journalism Scholars" program could mean when you consider these rising New York media stars are recent graduates of the class:

Juuuust kidding. Sort of.

From the SEO blog:

In a conference call with investors and analysts, Murdoch said News Corp is in advanced discussions to acquire controlling interest in an unnamed search engine. Speculation has turned to LookSmart and Mamma.Com as reasonable targets. Class A shares of News Corp rose quickly when news of Murdoch's plans were reported early yesterday, jumping from 16.42 to today's close of 18.11.

From now until we get bored with it, we're going to play a game called, "What Would Rupert Acquire?" Send your nominations/suggestions to fishbowlNY@mediabistro.com. He needs help deal-sourcing anyway, or he wouldn't have bought MySpace. (Right? Right?)

Last Week Was More Interesting Than It Seemed [The SEO Blog]

What happens to this guy? (MySpace group description: "This groups [sic] is dedicated to all those disgusted with the Right-Wing propaganda put out by Rupert Murdoch's NEWSCORP (FOX NEWS & NYPOST) P.S. Fuck Dildo Loving [sic] Bill O'Reilly")

Faux News [MySpace]
News Corp. to pay $580M for Intermix: Deal Results in New Owner of Social Site MySpace.com [CBS Marketwatch]

David Colby, whose family formerly owned the Algonquin Hotel (of Algonquin Roundtable fame) writes to protest Miller Global's sale of the property. And if any of you are interested in buying a slightly used and much-loved former literary hangout, he's proposing some sort of buyout.

Here's the startling news concerning the Algonquin Hotel.

Its owners, the Denver-based Miller Global, have hired the real estate giant Cushman & Wakefield to execute the sale of the moribund property. The same company was used to broker the Plaza Hotel deal so things do not bode well for the future of the Algonquin.

The sale of the Algonquin will mark the fourth time that it has changed hands in the eighteen years since my grandparents, Ben and Mary Bodne, relinquished their control over the Algonquin. Prior to that, my family owned, operated and lived in the Algonquin for forty-one glorious years.

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President Bush finally responded directly to questions about his "right arm" Karl Rove, declining to comment either way but saying that he'd "instructed every member of my staff to fully cooperate in this investigation." Rove was present during the interview and didn't say anything except to remind Bush about how he felt about Tom Cruise. "You adore him," he said.

All eyes are on Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist today in the wake of the spreading rumor that he may step down from the Court -- one week after his former colleague Sandra Day O'Connor did just that. Word on the street is he's planning to announce his retirement this morning at 11:00am. But, others doubt he'll resign with Bush out of the country, and more pressing issues at hand. But at this point, who knows. Could be a busy, busy weekend.

Update, 11:06 am: CNN, FNC and MSNBC are all running continuous London coverage; on NBC, the director of Canyon Ranch talking to Jane Pauley is only marginally more interesting than Mariah Carey on "Ellen" in a cleavalicious suit talking about her skanky quest to be prom queen.