Word is out that Myspace is going to be cutting staff by 75 percent this year, after its user based dropped over 24 percent in 2010. And to think Newscorp bought Myspace for $580 million just two years ago.

Which is one reason I am extremely skeptical about about how these online social networks are valued. Facebook is now, theoretically, worth $50 billion? Groupon is worth $6.4 billion? Sorry, but I just don’t see it. Few (or none?) of these online ventures have the solidity to be long-term bets, and you are going to see a lot of investors lose a lot of money, over and over again.

So what’s it really worth to capture a few million eyeballs over the short term? This is an especially important question considering that the moment your ads start to get intrusive, you lose market share–big time. I think a much better method is needed to determine value for online start-ups, especially those in the extremely nebulous world on social networking. But until the greedy and gullible learn their lesson (the hard way), this is going to keep happening. Yes, the Internet is reshaping business models all over the world, at a very deep level. But there is something to be said, too, for business basics.