CBS Marketwatch
is floating a rumor that CNET (TechRepublic’s parent company) is
shopping itself to potential buyers. Now, we’ve heard this rumor about
a thousand times before, usually involving Yahoo! or, god-willing,
Google. The latter is mostly wishful think on the parts of the
employees, the former on the parts of analysts, who have been
predicting the move for years.
These invariably turn out to be nothing, and are usually inspired by
misinterpreted rumbles that we’re about to roll out a new property. It
happened with MP3.com, and we just rolled out the new TV.com and
music.download.com.
This one feels a little more real, however, because of which properties
we rolled out, and who is supposedly looking to acquire us: Viacom.
Considering all the media-related sites CNET runs these days, getting
bought by Viacom would make a certain amount of sense. But, again,
these are mere rumors, and I’ve long since given up any hope of finally
cashing in my stock options for M&A-fueled riches. I’m not that
lucky.
