San Francisco — CNET Networks Inc., faced with troubled shareholders who want to expand the board, posted a narrower first-quarter loss on Thursday announced with a broad, multi-year strategic partnership that includes content, advertising, and search marketing components with Yahoo Inc. that will allow the Web portal to sell ads across its range of sites.
“The project, planned to be launched in the third quarter, would bring CNET about $100 million in revenue over the next three year, CNET Chief Executive Neil Ashe said on a conference call.”
This joint venture creates unmatched value for users and marketers alike. CNET, as the leader in technology media, offers category expertise and trusted, appealing content destinations for consumers, while Yahoo! brings scale and a broad advertising platform to increase revenue and distribution for its partners.
The multi-year strategic agreement with Yahoo comes as San Francisco-based CNET, best known for its technology news and reviews, faces pressure from an investor group led by hedge fund Jana Partners to transform itself into a “Web 2.0 company.”
Under the partnership:
CNET.com will transform into a major third-party provider of technology content on Yahoo! Tech and Yahoo! News, which will significantly add to its current offerings and ensure that Yahoo! will continue to provide its audience with the best news, reviews, and videos about technology and consumer electronics.
CNET Networks would be able to sell ads alongside its own audience on Yahoo! properties, giving its marketing partners the ability to efficiently and effectively scale their marketing programs across CNET Networks and the Yahoo! network.
Yahoo! will be able to sell display ads across sites owned by CNet, which include News.com, GameSpot and TV.com., which will be key components of Yahoo!’s publisher network; and
Yahoo!’s toolbar would be largely distributed through a newly constructed program at CNET Download.com; the world’s largest resource for safe, secure and trusted downloads.
“This announcement builds on our strategy to be the partner of choice for leading Internet publishers looking to maximize their revenue potential and audience engagement,” said Todd Teresi, senior vice president of the Yahoo! Publisher Channel.
“Our goal is to offer users access to the most comprehensive and relevant content on the Web. This partnership gives us the ability to extend our reach with Yahoo! Toolbar and to make Yahoo! Search a starting point for CNET Download.com’s global community,” said Vish Makhijani, general manager and senior vice president, Yahoo! Search.