A lot of people have been piling on CBS for its deal to buy Web site operator CNET Networks for $1.8 billion in cash. Not BoomTown. And it is not because newly crowned CBS Interactive CEO Quincy Smith (pictured here) is the ever-amusing Energizer Bunny of the Internet. Okay, CBS paid too much and that makes the whole thing suspect. But is it the wrong direction? I have been noodling on the deal for a while now and have concluded that I like it. Why? Primarily, because it is a big bet on big traffic from a high-quality Internet-born content and video site, which has been unnecessarily pilloried much as much, much Web 2.0 smaller competitors have been overhyped. With a hard rehaul–and there is no question CNET has to shake the Web 1.0 tone out of its system–and a true effort to find new advertising paradigm, the site could be...
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