Even before Monday's rise of Google shares, pundits were noting the runaway nature of the company's market cap, making such observations as Google being worth more than the Walt Disney Co. and General Motors combined or more than the combined value of Dow Jones & Co. and the New York Times Co. In January 2000, when TW said it would merge with the world's most richly valued new-media company at the time, AOL had a market cap that towered over TW, the world's most richly valued traditional media company, by $164 billion to $83 billion. TW today is worth less with AOL than it was worth without it, prompting some analysts to posit that -- in light of Wall Street valuing what is now a very profitable AOL as an asset worth somewhere between zero and just $8 billion -- it might be time to buy TW shares again.

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