Why not to let doting, in-awe reporters-posing-as-insiders near a valuation story: case in point, this story from the BW columnist/reporter we have skewered before, writing on Slide’s $50 million funding and the $500 million valuation:

SEE ALSO: Widget Maker Slide Raises $50 Million Fourth Round From Wall St.

—“The naysayers have a point, but I’ve long thought Slide was a far more valuable property than the Silicon Valley masses gave it credit for.”
—“For the strategy to work, Slide needs to build a jaw-droppingly huge audience…In that scenario, Slide almost becomes like a huge ad network, only one that’s delivering advertising in a far more compelling way. It’s not in a banner ad that people routinely tune out. It’s ideally worked into a very personalized slide show of your memories.”
—“Its applications had 150 million unique users, an increase of 142% over the previous year. The figures were outlined in a presentation for Slide investors that was obtained by Valley Girl.”
—“As much as Levchin works tirelessly to achieve his goal…In its own way, Slide is trying to build the next Yahoo! (NSDQ: YHOO) (YHOO). This is not a safe bet. It’s a big, gutsy, swing-for-the-fences play, and those typically take a lot of money.”
—“Levchin is one of the only people I know in Silicon Valley who actually grew more intense, more hungry after the huge Web 1.0 windfall bestowed on him and PayPal co-founder Peter Theil.”
—“For whatever reason, Slide has never been the media darling that Digg, Facebook, YouTube, and others are. I’m betting 2008 is the year that starts to change.”

And one guess for who’s making Slide the media darling in 2008….

For a more reasoned analysis about Slide’s valuation, read this by Kara Swisher (who first broke the story about Slide’s big funding).