by Michelle Lentz
Is it always like this and I just haven’t been paying attention? Here are two more acquisitions that strike me as noteworthy.
CBS Acquires C|Net for $1.8 Billion
I’ve always liked C|Net. With sites like Download.com and some decent news and blogs, it’s always been friendly and approachable technology, and they do have quite an extensive network of sites. For CBS, this is probably a no-brainer. When you first look at this, you wonder what on earth the two companies have in common. Then you realize – CBS has an unimpressive web presence. Why build their own when they can just buy one? While I see the benefit for CBS, I wonder what the folks at C|Net are really thinking. What does this do to C|Net and their vision, as well as their management?
Ask.com Acquires Reference Sites: Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com, Reference.com
Ask.com has purchased three big reference sites, hoping to “make more money showing ads to people looking for answers to basic questions.”
This is all part of Ask.com’s quest to um, topple Google, I suppose. Ask has realized that mroe than 30% of searches on their own site are for reference material. Access to these additional sites provides those users with more, and better, options.
Ask plans to plant some of its search engine results on the reference
sites in an effort to expose its technology to an even wider audience.
…Some of the material from Dictionary.com and other newly acquired
reference sites will be featured at the top of Ask’s search results
page devoted to “smart answers.”
–
If you have any tech trends, news, or apps you’d like to know more about, let me know at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net or via Twitter.