After $2 billion, Rupert Murdoch's Internet strategy has become clear.

Capture kids.

Murdoch finished off his buying spree by putting $680 million into IGN, which runs Web sites devoted to video games. This followed his earlier purchases of Scout Media, which runs sports sites for various sports teams, and the company that owned Myspace.com, the music fan site.

Murdoch has called a special "summit" of his top corporate chiefs for this weekend at his California ranch. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding Company of Saudi Arabia has apparently endorsed his strategy. (Didn't know the Saudis had their hooks into Murdoch quite that deeply, did you?)

So, is this going to be a gusher or a dry hole?

Odds are dry hole.

• Murdoch has to figure out who is in charge, and what the strategy will be, then the leaders of these three disparate companies have to buy into it or be replaced. Not as easy a corporate dance as it sounds, when those leaders all have enough cash in their pockets to say "go Cheney yourself" to The Man.
  
• Scout Media doesn't have any official ties to the teams it runs Web sites for. It is, in fact, just a journalism outfit. Sure, the sites can be tied into the FoxSports Web network, but that network hasn't been great, and does Scout know anything special? Based on the sites I've seen, no.
  
• Teenagers are notoriously fickle. Will they keep going to MySpace and IGN when they're "Fox-ified?"
  

And if all this fails, what do you think the Saudi prince will do? I can't wait to find out.