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Today’s big news… CBS is buying CNet… becoming the 10th largest internet company (chart).

Here is the press release:

CBS CORPORATION TO ACQUIRE CNET NETWORKS, INC.

CBS to Become a Top Ten U.S. Internet Company with Unparalleled Content and Reach, Boasting Approximately 200 Million Monthly Unique Users Worldwide

CNET Networks’ CNET, ZDNet, GameSpot.com, TV.com, CNET News, UrbanBaby, BNET, CHOW and Search.com, Among Others, To Be Combined with
CBS Corporation’s National and Local Interactive Businesses

NEW YORK and SAN FRANCISCO, May 15 — CBS Corporation (NYSE: CBS.A and CBS) has entered into an agreement to acquire CNET Networks, Inc., it was announced today by Leslie Moonves, President and Chief Executive Officer, CBS Corporation. Under the terms of the agreement, CBS will make a cash tender offer for all issued and outstanding shares of CNET Networks for $11.50 per share, representing an equity value of approximately $1.8 billion. The acquisition will make CBS one of the 10 most popular Internet companies in the United States, with a combined 54 million unique users per month, and approximately 200 million users worldwide.

“There are very few opportunities to acquire a profitable, growing, well-managed Internet company like CNET Networks,” said Moonves. “CBS stands for premium content and unparalleled reach, and CNET Networks will add a tremendous platform to extend our complementary entertainment, news, sports, music and information content to a whole new global audience. Together, CBS and CNET Networks will have significant additional exposure to the fastest-growing advertising sector and can accelerate our growth through a number of new content, promotion and advertising initiatives. We could not be more pleased with the prospect of adding CNET Networks and its tremendous team of people to the CBS family. I look forward to working with Quincy Smith, Neil Ashe and the considerable combined talent at both companies, as we build upon our success.”

Based in San Francisco, CNET Networks owns many of the Internet’s leading entertainment, news and information sites including CNET, ZDNet, GameSpot.com, TV.com, mp3.com, CNET news.com, UrbanBaby, CHOW, Search.com, BNET, MySimon and TechRepublic. The company, which reported significant profits in 2007 on revenues of $406 million, has a large international footprint, particularly in China.

Upon closing, CNET Networks’ sites will be combined with CBS’s stable of dynamic and growing interactive businesses. These include CBS.com, CBSSports.com, CBSCollegeSports.com, MaxPreps.com, CBSNews.com, last.fm, Wallstrip, MobLogic, CBS Radio and CBS Television Stations digital media platforms, and the distribution network of the CBS Audience Network, which is made up of more than 300 partner Web sites and reaches 82% of all online users in the United States.

“The core businesses of CNET Networks and CBS Interactive represent near perfect category symmetry in premium online content,” said Quincy Smith, President, CBS Interactive. “Together we will have a terrific opportunity to not only grow our established businesses, but to build new attractive verticals of content as well. This is the beginning of an era for both CBS and CNET Networks; plus, it’s going to be great to work with Neil and his team, many of whom I have known for many years.”

“We’re thrilled to join CBS and combine our interactive media experience with CBS’s world-class content,” said Neil Ashe, Chief Executive Officer, CNET Networks, Inc. “CNET Networks operates some of the most important premium online brands, serving the most sought after online audiences. Today’s announcement brings together two organizations that complement each other and working with Leslie, Quincy and the talented people at CBS, we look forward to taking our business and our brands to the next level.”

“We look forward to completing the acquisition of CNET Networks and the terrific benefits it brings to CBS as Quincy, Neil and their combined teams build upon our success,” Moonves concluded. “At the same time our strong cash flow allows us to pay among the highest dividends in the industry, and we are committed to continue to pay our attractive dividend to return value to shareholders.”

The Board of Directors of CNET Networks has unanimously approved the merger agreement and unanimously recommends that CNET Networks stockholders accept the tender offer and tender their shares.

The transaction is subject to customary conditions and is expected to be completed in the third quarter of this year.

I admit, I have not jumped on the iPhone bandwagon.  I know, loser.  But, I like the Verizon network and the Blackberry keypad (I type a ton); it really comes down to typing mass quantities, and the Blackberry is the clear winner.  So, when I saw this on Crackberry.com… I jumped out of my chair.  Maybe I can have my cake and eat it too.  Read the blog post…he did a nice job.  I’m also still hoping for an iPhone with a killer keypad.

While image search is better than it was 10 years ago (okay, that’s not saying much), it could certainly be better and applied in more ways.  Google has released new information on its image search advances… with a new VisualRank algorithm that parallels PageRank.  Read more here.

Time to rant…

I can’t count the times I’ve watch a presentation and heard the presenter mention RSS… and follow it by “RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.”  And then there is the awkward pause that may or may not be acknowledged –  some are probably still thinking “huh?” and others “why do you keep saying this?”.  Let’s face it… RSS is not that simple.  RSS has a branding issue, and its origins come from technologists (we won’t even get into the version issues).

We should have the folks at P&G, Target, McDonalds or NBC give it a rubdown (you know, people who position to the mainstream)… then maybe people would call it something simple like… an Online Subscription (”sign up for our free online subscription with your online reader”) … or MyHeadlines… or Linker (”add us to your Linker”)… Peek (”sign up for our sneak peek”)… or something, anything.  Heck, call it FRED and stop explaining what it is.  No one explains the names Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, iPod, mp3, etc, etc.  Thank you Yahoo for allowing people to add stuff to their MyYahoo page; that sounds easy.

Thank you Mashable for hitting the point today; yes, it does need and easy button.  I couldn’t agree more… or pass up the opportunity to finally post my own rant on this.

I hope you all enjoyed reading this via your RSS reader … doht!

CBS Interactive is doing it right by setting up an office in Silicon Vally (Menlo Park). This world has changed and Tech plays a big role. Today, people don’t need to start their morning with a newspaper, listen to the radio to/at/from work or watch the evening television newscast; although, most still do out of habit. Today and tomorrow, tech will enable media/audiences/advertising in so many ways. Compare how these technologies affected our world: printing press, transistor, AM/FM, UHF/VHF, microphone, video camera. And then consider how many new technologies have rolled out in the past 2, 5, 20 years. Many of those technologies affect information flow, and therefore cut into the role traditional media has played. And, I suppose if Tech companies can become media companies (a la Google), then the opposite can be true (if a book seller like Amazon can sell tech services to small businesses, why can’t media companies enable audiences to ____ , or at the very least, to enable media to continue to evolve). Although, I doubt CBS wants to be a Tech company; rather just enough to grow audiences, audience engagement, and revenue from subscriptions and advertising.

The CBS Interactive M&A and dealmaking team will have their eye (sorry for the pun) on these areas:

• Personalization: I want my news topics, my shows, my music, my friends, my lifestyle… my way… and advertisers’ ROI will improve as their targeted ads increasingly reach the right people (throw away that notion of “50% of my ad budget is working; I just don’t know which half”…it is aging fast, and it will create winners and losers).

• Distribution: web, email, IM, mobile, gaming, television (here comes the internet connection), in-car, digital signage, digital readers, etc.

• Engagement/participation: rating stuff, giving feedback, recommending, forwarding, remixing, watching, linking, embedding, interacting, learning, analyzing, creating, editing, deleting, etc.

Evolving on these fronts will complement CBS’s current content/product portfolio, and, its relationships with audiences and advertisers. Keep an eye (sorry, again) on the parallels between product and advertising; each of the above points has many potential plays on both sides.

Read more on the CBS Interactive move here

Newspaper continues upward, online that is, with 12% growth in web traffic.  Another cool number is that 40% of all U.S. web users visited a newspaper website in Q1.  Here is more info…

We’ve all seen the plethora of reports and headlines about the video ad business over the past few years. The IAB continues their efforts to help us all face the right direction. That’s cool because bumping into awkward ad sizes just isn’t what it once was (hey man, the animated gif eye sore days are over; get with the program, and make some money). Check out their guidelines and give them feedback. Click here. Doo it. Doo it.

FriendFeed basically builds bridges between your social web accounts (YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc, etc) and allows you to stay connected with friends a bit easier in a world of multiple logins/passwords.  Read more here.

On a same-same-but-different track is Google’s OpenSocial.   Same in that it makes this “multi” world easier, different in that opensocial is more for developers/server-side and friendfeed is more for users/client-side.

AT&T and Vizible have a new browser in beta dubbed Pogo. Instead of repeating what has already been said (and better), I’ll tip the hat and foward you to ars technica…

AT&T has opened up a private beta of its new, hyper-visual web browser named Pogo. Yes, you read that right—AT&T is diving into the web browser market with a new creation of its own, based on Mozilla and 3D technology from Vizible, a Canada-based company that AT&T has invested in. The goal is to create a web browsing experience that is more robust than the crufty old browsers that we have all grown accustomed to.

Hybrids aren’t the only new thing at General Motors.  GM is shifting gears in a big way.  Last year it spent $197 million in online display advertising… and now it plans to spend $1.5 billion on digital and one-to-one marketing, of its $3B budget, over the next three years.

There is more here…

Consumers looking to buy new vehicles were among the first to embrace online research to support buying decisions. And while television and print still have a place in product launches and awareness, many dealers now accept that the purchase process starts - and sometimes ends - online.   …

I personally have spent much more time on auto websites than at the dealer, or anywhere else for that matter.  MINI has a great build-it-yourself site (I spent an hour consumed with the site last fall), which is becoming much more common.  It is the ultimate showroom — your favorite cars, customized to your liking, in the convenience of browsing in your boxers.  And when I do hit the showroom, admittedly just to browse and make sure I didn’t miss something online, I often find out I know as much or more about the car than the car salesman.  Nope, I’m no Einstein, just passionate about the stuff I’m into, like many.  So, it makes perfect sense that auto companies would go where the interest and purchase begins — online.  It’s about education, it’s about connecting with the senses and passion, it’s about the conversation, it’s about…selling cars.