RealMoney's Blog Watch

Steve Rubel presents some stunning stats on the blog Micro Persuasion on the growth of MySpace. I also feel stunned by the fact that I've never once looked at a MySpace site. I've really turned into an old man.

From his post:

It has 61 + million registered users with 21+ million unique visitors (media metrix)

It's the second largest destination on the web, by page views

It splits 50.2% male, 49.8% female

They reach more men online than ESPN.com. They reach more females online than iVillage.

The primary age demo is 16-34

They have 1.4 million registered bands, 350,000 band blogs

The site attracts 220,000 new registrants daily

---

Former uber-analyst turned post-bubble blogger Henry Blodget weighs in on why Google (GOOG - commentary - Cramer's Take) needs an extra $2 billion (yeah, like who in their right mind would want $2 billion to do just nothing):

From his post:

Bets?

Facebook? MySpace (for cash and stock, giving News Corp. a big Google stake)? The rest of AOL? Tellme? Keep 'em coming... After reading Battelle, my money's on Facebook.

I don't think there's a chance in hell they would buy MySpace or Facebook, particularly at the supposed asking price of $2 billion.

---

Hedge funds are getting political.

---

I mean, all T. Boone Pickens did was make one trade. He simply bought oil. That's it. I mean, maybe he made other plays. But that one trade was the source of most of his gains. How long did it take? Like, a minute. He called his broker and said, "buy oil," maybe, and then played golf for the rest of the year? So I wonder what this works out to per hour of work.

---

Kevin Kelly has a great write-up at MarketMoneyLetter on activist play James River Coal (JRCC - commentary - Cramer's Take).

---

Going Private, a blog by a private-equity professional, asks an interesting question about Google Finance.

The blog Ebay Strategies theorizes about a rumored merger between eBay (EBAY - commentary - Cramer's Take) and Yahoo! (YHOO - commentary - Cramer's Take).

---

Is this for real? And, if I join, will it help me raise money?

---

Ferocious RealMoney bloggers Paul Kedrosky and Barry Ritholtz go head to head at Alexaholic.:

---

John Battelle shares the latest search stats.

---

Groovy Stocks screens for consumer companies with P/E ratios 15 or below, P/S ratio of 2 or below, current ratio less than 1, debt/equity less than 1.5, operating margins of 10% or greater and positive cash flow. Man, you guys are picky! Whatever happened to buying crap companies and watching them triple?

---

At the time of publication, Altucher and/or his fund was long James River Coal, although positions may change at any time.

James Altucher is a managing partner at Formula Capital, an alternative asset management firm that runs several quantitative-based hedge funds as well as a fund of hedge funds. He is also the author of Trade Like a Hedge Fund and Trade Like Warren Buffett. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy or sell stocks. Altucher appreciates your feedback; click here to send him an email.

Interested in more writings from James Altucher? Check out his newsletter, TheStreet.com Internet Review. For more information, click here.

TheStreet.com has a revenue-sharing relationship with Trader's Library under which it receives a portion of the revenue from purchases by customers directed there from TheStreet.com.