NEWS: CBS Centralizes Its Superdistribution of Videos on the Web

CBS Centralizes Its Superdistribution of Videos on the Web

from TechCrunch by Erick Schonfeld

When it comes to Web video, CBS has been one of the most promiscuous media companies out there. And no, I am not talking about its $1.8 billion acquisition of CNET (which does have some video assets). Rather, CBS has taken a strategy of superdistribution when it comes to spreading its videos across the Web. It wants its videos everywhere. Thus CBS has struck distribution deals with more than 300 sites—including YouTube, AOL, MSN, Joost, Veoh, Bebo,and TVGuide.com. These are collectively lumped together into the CBS Audience Network, against which CBS sells its own ads.

Now the CBS Audience Network also has its own site, where it highlights its top partners and the most popular CBS videos on each of them. You can see how many times each video has been watched and the number of comments for each one. (An iPhone demo and a Borat interview on Letterman are the two most popular, with 8.9 million and 5.7 million views, respectively). Right now, though, only the top videos from YouTube are visible. But it looks like AOL, Bebo, MSN, TV.com, and Joost will be coming soon...

Ed: Content, circulation, ad sales. CBS is building it's circulation and auditing mechanism for the Web 3.0 world.

AOL Launches Specialty Sites to Boost Growth

from Wired Top Stories by Associated Press

Though known best for bringing the Internet to the masses, AOL is beginning to shift its focus toward serving niche audiences with the launch of dozens of specialty websites.

Ed: To strategically compete with Google, Microsoft -- look for legacy broadcasters and publishers to become destination channels. 

Why old media is running scared of Google

Posted by Charles Cooper

Talk about missing the forest for the trees. With everyone and their mother-in-law predicting a coming wave of acquisitions of so-called new media companies by old media outfits, that future's already snuck up on us.

In the last year:

•  Cox bought Adify 
•  Hi-Media Group bought Fotolog 
•  Time Warner's AOL bought Bebo, Quigo, Third Screen Media 
•  Comcast bought Plaxo 
•  Disney bought Club Penguin 
•  CBS bought Last.fm, CNET Networks, Wallstrip, Dotspotter 
•  Microsoft bought 1.6 percent of Facebook 
•  Hearst bought Kaboodle and Answerology 
•  Jupiter Media bought MediaBistro 
•  News Corp. bought Photobucket, Beliefnet 
•  The New Times bought Freakonomics blog 
•  Forbes bought Clipmarks 
•  Discovery bought Treehugger 

If you use News Corp.'s 2005 acquisition of MySpace.com as the starting point, the list gets longer. Going back that far, there's been more than $19 billion worth of significant mergers between the biggest old and new media players in the online media industry.