jeff gerstmann
GiantBomb is a new gamer blog edited by Jeff Gerstmann, the CNET GameSpot editor
fired last November over his negative — or "unprofessional," if you want the official version — reviews of an advertiser's game. GiantBomb is part of
WhiskyMedia, a small startup run by Shelby Bonnie, who himself was
forced out as CNET's CEO two years ago, after an investigation fingered him in a stock-options backdating scandal. Bonnie told
Bits that he's not out to build another CNET: “Our goal is we want to remain less than 10 people." Valleywag's publisher used to
talk like that, too.
cnet
CNET has been eyed by Quincy Smith, CBS's hyperacquisitive online chief, long before he sealed a $1.8 billion deal to buy the company. As a banker at Allen & Co., CNET was his client. "At one point, he wrote this major presentation about how valuable content was," a tipster tells us. "The single example in it was CNET. It was basically his only idea." An unfair dig? Perhaps. There is
little like CNET on the market — a pure play on professional online content worth $1.8 billion? It can't be found. But the lack of a direct competitor may have also been CNET's undoing — the mixed blessing that brought it under attack by activist investors and led it to CBS's waiting arms.
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silicon valley tool
Reformed stock promoter Henry Blodget has a suggestion for CNET:
Take it private, with the help of former CEO Shelby Bonnie. An excellent idea. From all we hear, morale couldn't be lower at the tech-news portal. And current CEO
Neil Ashe isn't helping matters. His idea of a pep speech? "We should be more like Al Qaeda," he told an assembly of employees. You mean, hated by everyone on the planet? Judging from how his underlings feel, Ashe is getting a head start on
that project inside his own offices. Cheer up, Neil! You just won the latest prize for being a Silicon Valley Tool.
cnet
CNET employees loved CEO Shelby Bonnie,
according to the San Francisco Chronicle (and a CNETter confirms to me that there was loyalty since he'd been at the company since Day One). So it was a shock when he seemingly fired himself this week over overseeing improperly backdated stock options.
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