Rumor: News Corp. in buyout talks with LinkedIn

Here's a little something to chew on along with your Thanksgiving turkey and pumpkin pie. TechCrunch UK is reporting an "unconfirmed rumour" via a "well-placed" and "reliable" source that the LinkedIn social network is in talks with News Corp. about a possible buy out in January 2008.

That, of course, would put both LinkedIn--considered a sort-of MySpace for the grown-up business set--and MySpace itself under Rupert Murdoch's same corporate entity.

LinkedIn, an increasingly competitive player in the social media market, recently started allowing its members to upload a photograph to accompany their profiles and--a la Facebook--opened up an application programming interface to allow third-party developers to contribute to the site.

We'll take a closer look at the News Corp./LinkedIn-acquisition rumor post-Turkey Day.