By
Rick Aristotle Munarriz
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September 12, 2007
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It seems as though everyone is trying to grow at CNET Networks' (Nasdaq: CNET ) expense these days. This time, Washington Post (NYSE: WPO ) is turning to Reviewed.com to launch a new channel on its namesake publication's website, featuring Reviewed.com's consumer-tech product reviews.
It may not seem to be an affront to CNET, but think about it. Reviewed.com is a rapidly growing collection of websites with names such as CamcorderInfo.com and PrinterInfo.com that deliver in-depth, editorially driven product reviews. Reviewed.com is already drawing 800,000 unique monthly visitors; this kind of exposure will help it toss its net out a little farther.
This move comes at a time when CNET's traffic, on the whole, is stalling. Page views fell by 19% throughout CNET in its latest quarter, though the traffic is down by just 1% if you back out the company's struggling Webshots photo-sharing website.
There was a time when CNET seemed to be the edgier Web-based alternative to Consumer Reports for product reviews, but now it's competing against nimbler blogs, the proliferation of Web 2.0 websites and their user-generated reviews, and other consumer-tech havens -- such as Reviewed.com.
CNET should be concerned with the growing presence of smaller rivals. When larger companies such as Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO ) make a push into consumer tech, they tend to lose editorial focus and ultimately outsource the content creation. CNET can live with that, and it can even profit from the calamity. Spunky sites such as Reviewed.com and Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX ) Engadget are the ones to worry about. That's also where CNET should focus its acquisitive efforts.
Yes, you can go bigger by thinking smaller.
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