Still suffering a hangover from a stock options debacle, and with its business suffering from a soft PC market and strong competition from blogs, online technology information provider CNET Networks Inc. is being talked about as a potential take-out target. It’s not the first time CNET has been seen in this light; in fact, the San Francisco-based company has been in play for some time now, but it has yet to find someone interested enough. Yahoo! Inc. is seen as the most likely buyer, particularly with its own recently introduced Yahoo! Tech not getting great traction. Google Inc. also could make a play for the company as a way to keep it out of a competitor’s hands, but also if it feels it could better monetize CNET’s properties. CNET does still have plenty of value. According to comScore Networks, its sites, which provide reviews of electronics goods and technology news, ranked 15th in the U.S. with 31 million unique visitors in June. And with its stock trading at $7.59, CNET is starting to become more attractive to any potential buyer, especially considering it’s lost half of its value since last year. But there’s a reason for that, so unless someone thinks they have a way to right the ship, we suspect CNET will have to fix its problems on its own. —David Shabelman
See May 3 blog post from Tech Con
See July 31 post from BloggingStocks.com
Tags: Cnet
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