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Vincent Padois, head tutor at the Pierre and Marie Curie University who teaches robotics and is babysitting the Paris ICub, makes a demonstration with ICub robot, a ?hybrid embodied cognitive system for a humanoid robot" about 1 metre (3.2 feet) high, at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris September 4, 2009. Six versions of ICub exist in laboratories across Europe, where scientists are painstakingly tweaking its electronic brain to make it capable of learning, just like a human child and hoping it will learn how to adapt its behaviour to changing circumstances, offering new insights into the development of human consciousness. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

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    News Corp, LinkedIn not in takeover talks: source

    Kenneth Li
    NEW YORK
    Mon Dec 3, 2007 2:18pm EST
    Screengrab of www.linkedin.com Dec. 3, 2007. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is not holding takeover discussions with LinkedIn, a fast-growing social network for professionals, according to a source familiar with the matter. REUTERS/Heinz-Peter Bader

    NEW YORK (Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is not holding takeover discussions with LinkedIn, a fast-growing online social network for professionals, a source familiar with the matter said on Monday.

    Technology  |  Deals  |  Stocks  |  Mergers & Acquisitions

    The source shot down British media reports that the two were discussing a deal worth about $1 billion. The two companies had been in talks for possible future partnerships, the source added.

    News Corp and LinkedIn declined to comment.

    At first glance, a deal could make sense. LinkedIn could provide the technology and service underpinnings to connect the business-world readers of Dow Jones publications if Murdoch's $5.6 billion deal for the publisher of The Wall Street Journal closes this year.

    "Strategically, it would be a great fit," Goldman Sachs analyst Anthony Noto told the Reuters Media Summit last week. Whether it makes financial sense hinges on price, he said.

    A deal would also satisfy Murdoch's instincts to exploit fast-moving opportunities before they peak. News Corp bought MySpace for $580 million in 2005 before the hangout for teenagers exploded to become the world's largest social network.

    LinkedIn, the sixth-biggest U.S. social network, logged the biggest growth among its peers in October and topped the expansion rates of the larger MySpace and Facebook, according to Nielsen. LinkedIn attracted about 5 million U.S. visitors in October, up from 1.7 million a year earlier.

    News Corp's Fox Interactive Media (FIM) Internet division, which oversees MySpace, may already be moving to serve the business world.

    FIM President Peter Levinsohn said at the Reuters Summit last week that MySpace plans to let its users create different profiles to attract different contacts, such as personal friends, business contacts or family members.

    LinkedIn executives said in published reports last month that the company aims to build a longer-term business with an eye toward a possible initial public offering. A Fortune magazine blog quoted LinkedIn Chief Executive Dan Nye as saying it would take an offer of much more than $1 billion for him to sell the company.

    "We believe we're building a company that's changing the world," Nye told Reuters in New York on Monday, responding to questions about the takeover speculation. "We are very excited about doing it independently."

    (Reporting by Kenneth Li; Editing by John Wallace/Jeffrey Benkoe)
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