• PaidContent.org, Friday, May 16, 2008 11:15 AM

PaidContent.org talks with Internet ad industry giants about CBS's $1.8 billion acquisition of CNET, who say it's hard to find a downside to the deal for either company. Tim Hanlon, EVP-Ventures, Publicis' Denuo said, "It's a smart, focused vertical buy that gives (CBS) credible content in the tech genre that can easily be leveraged across multiple CBS properties, especially radio and news."

Former AOL Platform A chief Curt Viebranz thinks the move could revitalize CBS's "dying business." He said CNET gives the media giant another chance to prove that it can extract value from an important vertical player. "Remember the days of MarketWatch-and I actually say that CNET is a better fit than MarketWatch," he said.

Alan Schanzer, managing partner, at WPP Group's MEC Interaction, said it's all about scale: "It's not always going to be the case where people go home and turn on their TV to watch CBS," he said. "It will be much more about CBS going out to this mass audience of people and saying we have this content, come watch it. That's why we think the blended marketplace that this deal creates is so interesting, because the flow of content works in both directions."

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