CNET, Yahoo Team Up In a Bigger Way
From AllThingsD:
“CNET Networks will also announce a much expanded editorial and advertising relationship with Yahoo that will give the tech news site broad distribution on the highly trafficked Internet portal…..
“Under the new deal, sources at both companies said a large swath of CNET tech news and also reviews will be carried on Yahoo, making it the major supplier of tech news content to the site. Rather than just focusing on its owned-and-operated properties, Yahoo’s more recent strategy has been to partner with media companies.
“In addition, under the terms of the deal, Yahoo will sell some of CNET’s remnant inventory and also allow CNET ad sales staff to sell into some areas of Yahoo.”
Smart.
It suggests each company has begun to recognize its strengths — and begun to get comfortable with its weaknesses. Yahoo has enormous audience reach (it’s a portal) and sells lots of banners at low CPMs (it’s a giant ad network); it isn’t a leader in original content or high-CPM brand advertising. CNET has a great sales team that generates very high CPMs around premium tech content and an award-winning editorial team (it’s DNA is that of a niche publisher); it isn’t big enough to make the high volume, low CPM ad-network model work outside the core tech sites.
It’s a shame — given all the recent news at both companies — they didn’t do this sooner.
Chas, CNET used to have lots of content on Yahoo, back in the “it’s good for branding” days. While you’re right about the respective strengths of the two companies, I think this is not a meaningful deal this late in the respective lifecycle of the companies. It’s a marriage made from weakness, not strength. I still love the red ball, but… doesn’t look so smart from here.
I hope _you_ are right, though!