ReCrunch

[TC] Why CBS Bought CNET, And Not The Other Way Around:

CNET announced its sale to CBS, a $16.5 billion company, today for $1.8 billion. In late 1999, though, CNET was a $12 billion company. … So why didn’t CNET continue to grow and ultimately take over a media dinosaur like CBS, instead of the other way around? Perhaps it was because they did deals like buying Webshots for $70 million and then a couple of years later selling Webshots for $40 million. Or perhaps it was because they failed to realize the importance of blogs until 2007.

That’s it. They missed out on the whole blogging phenomenon. They were actually worth $12 billion in 1999. Forget the whole tech bubble. It never happened. It never wiped out most of the industry. CNET was not one of only a few to somehow survive. Had CNET only realized the power of blogs, they would be buying a media powerhouse CBS today.

This explains why Google is so successful. They have BlogSpot! Duh!

Now back to reality. Kids, remember - AOL Time Warner was a freak accident.