Dueling Fools: CNET Bull Rebuttal

Sorry, Tom. I have a completely different take on CNET's progress. You feel as if the company has been prone to veer off course as it moves into lifestyle areas. I believe that by stretching its wingspan, CNET (Nasdaq: CNET  ) not only reaches a larger audience but also attracts a wider range of advertisers.

They say if you have lemons, make lemonade. I say that if you have Kids.com, you make a parenting site. Why settle for just loading up a domain like that with reviews of LeapFrog (NYSE: LF  ) educational gadgets for kiddies? If you own TV.com or MP3.com, nurture the coach potatoes and music fans, respectively, for the long haul. CNET is doing it right.

Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO  ) as a competitor? The bloggershavespoken. Yahoo! Tech is no CNET. Yahoo! may offer some neat introductory articles and product search filters, but it comes up short once you get to the product level, where Yahoo! is at a loss in coming up with the professional and useful editorial reviews that the CNET crew has assembled.

Yes, content is still king. I have no beef against Bankrate. The company has made a killing as a financial referral service. However, none of that would be possible if it, too, didn't embrace the editorial model to produce syndicated interest-rate content to draw in loan and CD seekers. If CNET is the organizational equivalent of a mullet -- short on top and long in the back -- I'll take it, because there's a lot of talent in those 2,300-plus hires.

Finally, Tom argues that it's hard to value a company that has delayed filing its latest quarterly report. CNET isn't alone here. It joins other companies, including Computer Associates (NYSE: CA  ) , Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL  ) , UnitedHealth (NYSE: UNH  ) , and Bausch & Lomb (NYSE: BOL  ) , in the same backdating stew.

Do you really believe that we can't value these companies today based on questionable option grants issued years ago? Of course we can. We know that CNET is growing. We know that educated analysts who have already baked in the past expect the company to continue growing. We also know that recent acquisitions value CNET significantly higher than where we find it today.

But don't buy CNET because it's buyout bait. Don't buy CNET because I like it and tapped it as a Rule Breakers recommendation. Buy into CNET because you believe that a profitable company sitting on prime dot-com real estate won't go unappreciated for long. Oh, and Tom, what are you waiting for? If you're a fan of News.com, start spreading the News.com.

Think you're done with the Duel? You're not! Go back and read the other three arguments, and then vote for a winner.

Yahoo! and UnitedHealth are Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendations. UnitedHealth is also a Motley Fool Inside Value selection.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz is a fan of CNET, but he does not own shares in any of the companies mentioned in this story. He is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early. The Fool has a disclosure policy.