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.