Internet Envy 2.0 for 'Old Media'

Investors in so-called old media have reason to fret. Not because the valuations of some fast-growing public and soon-to-be public Internet companies, like Groupon, Zynga and LinkedIn, are putting old media's to shame. More because of what damage "valuation envy" has done in the past. Remember 1999, when the dot-com bubble sent values of stocks like AOL in the stratosphere, leaving old media companies like Time Warner far behind? It was frustration with that valuation imbalance that helped drive Time Warner Chief Executive Gerald Levin into the disastrous AOL merger. The fear is that the same kind of thinking could prompt another silly deal.