cnet

Yahoo, CNET sign ad deal

Nicholas Carlson · 04/24/08 10:20AM

Yahoo is about to get a lot more CNET. The companies agreed to an expanded editorial and advertising relationship. One likely goal: CNET CEO Neil Ashe wants to get traffic from Yahoo Buzz, the Web giant's partner-to-play version of Digg. Buzz is designed to favor sites for which Yahoo brokers ads. [BoomTown]

Longtime CNET editor Michael Kanellos leaving for Greentech Media

Jackson West · 04/17/08 03:20PM

CNET editor-at-large Michael Kanellos is leaving for a post at the Oakland office of Greentech Media according to a tipster. Kanellos has been with the company for 12 years, and recently added cleantech stories to his beat. While no editorial staff were handed pink slips in the last round of CNET layoffs, Kanellos may have taken a look at the green tea leaves and left before the company had the chance. As for the promise of cleantech media? We suspect he's hedging his bets. Greentech is more an analyst shop than a publisher, and enviro-mad VCs who pay for research reports are a surer source of revenue than advertisers.

Microsoft pretends Vista sales video is a gag, and CNET editor buys it

Owen Thomas · 04/17/08 10:45AM

There you have it: Microsoft gets to produce an awesomely cheesy video to pump up the sales troops — but in a way that lets them pretend to be air-quotes cool, resistant to such straightforward come-ons. PR then strategically leaks it, lets the blogosphere react predictably, and finds a gullible square of a tech reporter to declare victory on Microsoft's behalf.

Natali Del Conte schools Fox News

Nicholas Carlson · 03/31/08 08:00PM

Check out Natali Del Conte on Fox News. Del Conte not only makes her geeky solution to finding a hard-to-find Wii seem simple — "just Google Wii Tracker" — she also advises viewers to buy Wiis bundled with games and then just return the games. Sneaky sneak.

Maybe a CNET pink slip will raise that infant

Nicholas Carlson · 03/28/08 05:20PM

"That's life," commenter danmiller3 wrote after we told you about how CNET laid off an employee recovering from cancer. Turns out he was more right than he knew. A new CNET tipster tells that one of his laid-off colleagues lost his job just two months after his wife gave birth. "Fuck Neil Ashe," our source says. He says CNET employees are "all half hoping" private equity firm Jana Partners — which already has a 14.9 percent stake in the company — "takes over and fixes the platform and other underlying legacy issues from when CNET was a cable syndicator instead of trying to create tons of new fledgling brands."

If I worked at CNET, this layoff memo would make me want to quit

Jordan Golson · 03/27/08 05:40PM

CNET CEO Neil Ashe sent this all-hands memo to explain to his charges the changes that CNET is making to be successful. The memo looks like it came straight out of a Dilbert strip. Ashe says CNET must "embrace change" and "drive greater efficiencies in the business." In addition, a management task force has evaluated CNET's "organization and resource alignment." How about writing a memo in actual English? That seems easier — and a better way to spend everyone's time. At least Jerry Yang's memos had that funny e.e. cummings-esque no-capital-letters charm going for them. Ashe's anodyne euphemisms? They make me glad I don't work at CNET — or any other huge conglomerate for that matter.

NASA does not plan to send Etsy arts-and-crafts sellers into space

Nicholas Carlson · 03/27/08 04:00PM

At the PSFK Conference in New York earlier today, NASA and auction site Etsy joined to invite the craftsmen who sell their goods on Etsy to compete to see who could make the best NASA-themed handmade good. "We'll send the two winners into space," Etsy founder Robert Kalin told the crowd. The crowd, along with News.com's Caroline McCarthy, took him at his word. Visions of a ride on Virgin Galactic took hold. Only to be dissolved. Because sadly, it turns out Etsy will not send any two people into space, but only their prize-winning goods. (Photo by pingnews.com)

Maybe a CNET pink slip will cure that cancer

Nicholas Carlson · 03/27/08 11:20AM

A freshly laid-off CNETter tells us that management's extension of benefits to May 31 hasn't allayed the employee's health concerns. Why? Oh, just cancer.

CNET lays off 120, 10 percent of U.S. workforce

Owen Thomas · 03/26/08 04:20PM

Newly former CNET employee Robert Balousek reports that he was one of 120 U.S. employees laid off by CNET, the online tech publisher. On Wall Street, the company is trying to fend off a takeover attempt by hedge fund Jana Partners. On the Web, the company is trying to stay vaguely relevant as a swarm of tech blogs silence whatever buzz it once had. The good news: CNET TV personality Natali Del Conte is still employed, which means there's some modicum of sense left at headquarters. Witnesses to the carnage, drop us a line. (Photo by Terry Chay)

Goldman Sachs is now 10 percent less impressed with Internet

Nicholas Carlson · 03/20/08 11:20AM

Citing a more challenging consumer environment, greater customer-acquisition costs and investor reluctance to pay above-market prices for shares, Goldman Sachs today cut price targets for Internet stocks including Google, eBay, and Amazon by 10 percent. For more reasons why Wall Street is suddenly less impressed with your tech stock portfolio, see Goldman's entire report, embedded here:

Michael Arrington on his CNET-killing blog rollup

Jordan Golson · 03/19/08 05:00PM

Michael Arrington spends 1,517 words talking about blogs taking venture funding and his grand scheme to form a big, A-List blog network to take on CNET. Most of you are too busy raising money for your blogs to read all that. Here's our 100-word version — and a suggested name for the blog network he wants to launch.

Valleywag seeking $10 million among VC blog feeding frenzy

Owen Thomas · 03/19/08 01:51PM

What is Michael Arrington smoking? His self-indulgent fantasy: All the bloggers should band together into a "dream team," owning equity in the joint venture. "Someone needs to pony up a big round of financing around an existing blog, or perhaps a new entity, and then start rolling them up into a big fat CNET crushing $200 million/year in revenue business," he writes. That existing blog he has in mind is obviously TechCrunch, though he never comes out and says it. What pushed him into this delusion? A rumor that Silicon Alley Insider is raising a $3 million to $5 million round and that PaidContent is also seeking more financing, a charge founder Rafat Ali doesn't exactly deny. Arrington doesn't want his competitors to raise money, because that will screw his ambitions for a big blog rollup.

Natali Del Conte even hotter when she speaks Spanish

Owen Thomas · 03/17/08 03:00PM

Really, we didn't think it was possible, but CNET editor Natali Del Conte is even more adorable en español. The bilingual TV personality is anchoring a deal between CNET and Univision, the Hispanic TV channel. "My Spanish-speaking family is WAY more impressed with this than anything else I've ever done," Del Conte told me. "Univision is all they've got so it's a big deal. My mom called me all weepy after she saw it and went, 'Oh my baby! She's speaking Spanish on TV!' My sister said, 'You would think we don't have English-speaking parents!' :)" 32 million U.S. residents speak Spanish at home. Somehow, I don't think they're tuning in to Michael Arrington for the latest on technology.

Jeremy Piven Groupies Crash Geek Party

Hamilton Nolan · 03/04/08 02:14PM

For some reason, Jeremy Piven and other Entourage people were hanging out last night at a party for Microsoft's new Office Live Workspace product. A CNET reporter went "hoping to find some people willing to talk about whether Office Live Workspace really is a formidable answer to the Google Docs that I've found myself using pretty frequently," but instead found a bunch of models there. Way to screw up a good Microsoft gathering, Jeremy Piven. [CNET]

Don't make her beg — Natali wants a new website

Owen Thomas · 02/22/08 12:08AM

I've been too much of a gentleman to say anything. But Natali Del Conte's website hasn't been doing the CNET editor and TV personality justice. It was such a relief to get an email from her admitting it was "ugly" and announcing a contest to give her website a facelift. Do you have what it takes to give Natali a makeover? The winner gets $100 and "mad props." The guidelines:

Jordan Golson · 02/20/08 03:50PM

CNET is relaunching on-demand videos with closed captioning — helpful for deaf viewers, but also good for Google. Transcripts of videos will be easily indexed and searched. How about they just run articles? That would be easier. [Silicon Alley Insider]

Owen Thomas · 02/20/08 01:19AM
  • Valleywag article on News.com editor-in-chief Jai Singh's resignation: 11:00 a.m.