Like the many brick and mortar businesses we never hear about, CNet is profitable and growing. The only difference when compared to the likes of Google and MSN is that it"s growing slowly and doesn"t really make a lot of fan fair about the addition of a new feature or technology to its arsenal. With a price tag that had floated between $1 and $2 billion dollars, the sheer cost to acquire the giant didn"t do much to attract buyers either. So, why is CBS different?

How about TV.com and News.com to start. That"s right, CNet is the guy behind the domains we would all love to own. TV.com may represent an incredible opportunity for CBS to take a position in online entertainment and News.com, similarly, could represent an opportunity to revive its once-great news programming. At the end of the day, however, it"s just smart business. Whereas Facebook and Digg may be a lot more sexy these days, they are smaller in the size of their actually businesses and significantly more risky. With an internal rate of return (IRR) of about 13% projected by CBS for the deal, the purchase may not mean a sky-rocketing stock price, but it"s certainly not the gamble that the likes of Microsoft are making in their on-again-off-again bid for Yahoo!

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3.23 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."