I sat down Tuesday afternoon in Mountain View, Calif., with Dan Nye, the newish CEO (he joined earlier this year) of LinkedIn. That’s the company that is like Facebook for grownups, a businessperson’s social networking site. Nye’s looking for press because LinkedIn plans to unveil some nifty new features on Dec. 10. (I got a look, but agreed not to divulge anything yet.) I was interested in hearing what he had to say, in part because of the rumors flying around that LinkedIn plans to sell the company early next year to News Corp. (NWS)

The buyout gossip began with an item last week in the UK version of TechCrunch. Never mind that LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman (a made man in the PayPal mafia and a buddy of mine) categorically denied the rumor in the Daily Telegraph. Anything that suggests that Rupert Murdoch would expand his social-networking empire is sure to set tongues wagging. Breakingviews.com wrote an intelligent summary of why a LinkedIn acquisition would make sense, largely because of the opportunities to leverage LinkedIn’s tools with the Wall Street Journal readership.

Not surprisingly, Nye didn’t deny that News Corp. made an offer for his company. Instead, he said that when he joined the company he told the board — comprised of Hoffman, Sequoia’s Mark Kvamme and Greylock’s David Sze — that he was only interested in taking the job if the goal was to “go long.” But is he selling out anyway? “We’re excited about building this company,” said Nye. “It would take a helluva lot to get us off that path.” Does that mean $1 billion? “A lot more than that,” said Nye, who worked at Procter & Gamble (PG), Intuit (INTU) and Advent Software (ADVS) before joining LinkedIn.

LinkedIn clearly is playing to win. The company has mushroomed from 60 employees when Nye joined in February to almost 200 today. At the time, LinkedIn had 9 million members; today it has nearly 17 million. Nye predicted revenues will range from $75 million to $100 million next year.

LinkedIn has the virtue of having survived adversity. Before Facebook and MySpace existed — back when Friendster was hot — LinkedIn was just getting going. It’s still going. Independent or part of News Corp., it’s fun watching this plucky company succeed.

My former boss Eric Pooley published a juicy, access-laden cover story about Rupert Murdoch in the current issue of Time Magazine. There’s a small amount of news, like Murdoch confirming that he discussed combining MySpace with Yahoo (YHOO), a conversation he had with former CEO Terry Semel. Pooley also describes how Murdoch threatened to walk away if the Bancrofts didn’t submit a more reasonable response to his $5-billion bid to buy the Wall Street Journal. Murdoch also voices support for newly installed Journal managing editor Marcus Brauchli. All in all, it’s a good read, with the cover line “The Last Tycoon”, after the Fitzgerald novel.

There’s also an intriguing throwaway line from Murdoch deep in the story, regarding MySpace. “It was an education for me, the way it took off,” Murdoch tells Pooley. “It was the cool young site. Now the average age is climbing.”

What’s intriguing about Murdoch’s point is that MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe went out of his way to make a similar point to me Wednesday morning over breakfast in San Francisco. He told me 40% of MySpace’s audience is 35 years or older. The reason for stressing this is to counter the assumption that rival site Facebook has a better plan for growing beyond its youthful audience. I don’t doubt that more older people are using MySpace, and Facebook, for that matter. When I asked DeWolfe, however, what percentage of time spent on MySpace is attributed to the 35-year-old-plus crowd, he said he didn’t know but agreed with my assumption that the figure would be well below 40%.

I still doubt that adults, the kinds with careers to build and families to raise, will spend much time on sites like MySpace and Facebook in years to come. The owners of those sites disagree, of course. Their businesses depend on it.

I interviewed Rupert Murdoch a couple years ago in his expansive West Coast office on the historic Fox lot in Los Angeles for an article about his Internet ambitions. This was after the MySpace acquisition but before the rest of the world realized that Murdoch has gotten it right this time. As we wrapped up the interview — Murdoch graciously apologized for cutting things off, but he had to scoot for his regular physical at UCLA’s hospital — he stood to shake my hand and said, “Hope you got some good copy.”

Right there I was reminded why journalists are so smitten with Murdoch, even the ones who disagree passionately with his politics. The guy loves journalism. I mean, he really loves the give and take, the analysis, the insight, the nasty fights and so on. The same stuff journalists love. He’s also passionate about business, which is why he never has made a secret about coveting The Wall Street Journal, in his — and everyone else’s view — the class act of daily business journalism in the English language. He has watched the Journal maintain its greatness, even as it demeans itself with a smaller size and endless lifestyle stories. Not that Murdoch judges. His papers publish the lowest of the low and the highest of the high. The Journal would find its place at the top of the News Corp. (NWS) heap. (My bias should be noted. I write day and night for Fortune Magazine, but I’m also a regular commentator on the Fox News Channel, a News Corp. property.)

Will the Bancroft family sell? The market has an opinion on the answer to that question. It bid up shares of Dow Jones (DJ) by 57% moments after Dow Jones disclosed Murdoch’s offer. Who else might jump in? When one of the greatest properties around is up for grabs, everyone needs to look. That will include the Washington Post Company (WPO), Gannett (GCI) and Pearson (PSO). Goldman Sachs (GS) just raised a new $20 billion investment fund. Who knows? Maybe Goldman dreams of better coverage in the Wall Street Journal.

A final note. Shares of News Corp. have been on fire for a while now. Since the acquisition of MySpace parent Intermix, actually. And the market approves of its bold move today, initially sending the shares down less than 3%. People forget, however, that for years Wall Street punished News Corp. with a “Murdoch discount.” Investors worried about the downside of a long-term-focused chief executive who periodically makes giant bets that don’t always pay off. An example: The Wall Street Journal recently highlighted the bizarre story (subscription required) of Gemstar (GMST) CEO Henry Yuen, in which News Corp. invested and ended up taking $6 billion in writedowns. The Journal called that move “a low point in Mr. Murdoch’s career as an investor.”

I’m guessing the Journal’s reporters and editors — and investors — won’t view Murdoch’s latest gambit as a low point of any kind.