As my mesh conference colleague Mark Evans has already pointed out on his own blog and at the mesh blog, we are trying to get a jump on things a little this year (or rather, next year) by putting mesh ’09 tickets on sale a little earlier. Every year we’ve had people say that they didn’t have enough time to get it into their calendars or to get approval or whatever, so this time we’re giving everyone lots of advance notice :-) The dates are April 7th and 8th. We’ll be announcing some of the keynotes and other content soon, and we’re also launching meshjobs, a mesh-based job site where you can list open positions your company might have and take advantage of some of the awesome talent that’s out there in the mesh-o-sphere. We’re having meshU again this year as well, the day before mesh proper, so if you know any developers or technical Web types, let them know that it’s coming, and that tickets for this one-day event should be on sale soon.

The Digg-sale plot continues to thicken. First there were rumours that Digg was for sale — asking price $300-million — and then there were reports that co-founder Jay Adelson had gone to the Allen & Co. venture fund party, where those who want to mingle with those who want to sell. And now, Eric Eldon at Venture Beat says he has it confirmed from a highly-placed source that Digg is for sale and Allen & Co. is handling the deal.

It’s not at all surprising that Digg wants to sell. But is $300-million a realistic price? In a world where less than 2 per cent of Facebook sells for $240-million, maybe it is. But to whom? One theory (which I wrote about the last time this came up) is that an existing media entity like News Corp. might want to buy it, for the same reason that the New York Times bought BlogRunner.com — which has now been integrated into its technology page — and Conde Nast bought Reddit.com.

I know this will probably expose me to widespread ridicule, but I could even see Google being interested in Digg. There’s no question that Google is getting more social, as recent developments — such as the ability to share Google Reader items with friends — indicate. But much of what Google has tried in that area hasn’t gained much traction. Why not make Digg the foundation of further social networking from within the company? I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility at all.

A great rumour from Valleywag, and one that actually makes some sense to me: Owen Thomas says he has heard that Digg is close to a deal to be acquired for about $300-million, but not by Google or Yahoo or one of the usual Web suspects — by a traditional media entity like the New York Times or the Washington Post. Implausible? I’m not so sure (Mike Arrington wishes Digg would just sell itself already).

As Owen notes, Digg recently signed a multi-year advertising deal with Microsoft for $100-million, and is likely worth close to $300-million on that basis alone (albeit at pretty nosebleed multiples of revenue, but hey — it’s no Facebook). But probably not to Google or Yahoo. How much traffic does it drive to those sites? Little or nothing.

To the New York Times or the Post, however, Digg could make a lot of sense. Maybe not $300-million worth of sense, you might argue — but still a lot. To a large number of younger, Web-savvy users, Digg is their front page. And yes, it’s still largely focused on technology, but so what? The NYT has already shown that it’s willing to get more “social media”-friendly with its BlogRunner purchase and integration.

As a commenter on the Valleywag post notes, Digg competitor Reddit was bought by Conde Nast last year and it has apparently continued to thrive — in fact, it drives several times more traffic to my blog than Digg does. Meanwhile, Allen Stern over at Centernetworks has some theories about why Digg might be ready to sell.

According to Compete, traffic at Digg has skyrocketed over the past year — to 18 million uniques a month from 3 million, to 51 million vists from 4 million, and to 200 million pageviews from 10 million. Not bad.

Did Peter Thiel have to practice in a mirror saying that Facebook is worth $8-billion, so that he didn’t smirk at the wrong time, or worse yet, burst out laughing? I wonder. The venture capitalist and former PayPal founder certainly seems to have pulled it off, since he got Bloomberg to publish that number with a straight face. Rupert Murdoch is going to kick himself for only saying MySpace is worth $6-billion.

As Mike Arrington has noted at TechCrunch, and Carlo has likewise pointed out over at Techdirt, this is exactly the kind of thing that companies say when they are looking to be acquired. Call it a combination of playing hard to get and fluffing up your feathers so that you become more attractive to the other birds. A kind of mating ritual.

Could Facebook actually be worth $8-billion? It all depends on your math. There’s no way in a million years that Yahoo (or anyone else, for that matter) is going to pay $8-billion in cash money for it — but will they pay a billion or $2-billion and then claim that they got $8-billion in value from it, as Rupert and his minions continually claim about MySpace? That’s got a better chance of happening.

As for the talk of Facebook doing an IPO, that is likely also posturing. If they actually try to do one, it will only prove — as Vonage’s IPO did — that their backers are nervous and want to get out as soon as possible.