CBS Corporation To Acquire CNET Networks, Inc.

CBS Corporation has entered into an agreement to acquire CNET Networks, Inc., CBS President and Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves announced on May 15. Under the terms of the agreement, CBS will make a cash tender offer for all issued and outstanding shares of CNET for $11.50 per share, representing an equity value of approximately $1.8 billion.

The acquisition will make CBS one of the 10 most popular Internet companies in the United States, with a combined 54 million unique users per month, and approximately 200 million users worldwide.

Based in San Francisco, CNET owns many of the Internet's leading entertainment, news and information sites including CNET, ZDNet, GameSpot.com, TV.com, mp3.com, CNET news.com, UrbanBaby, CHOW, Search.com, BNET, MySimon and TechRepublic. The company, which reported significant profits in 2007 on revenues of $406 million, has a large international footprint, particularly in China.

Upon closing, CNET's sites will be combined with CBS's stable of interactive businesses. These include CBS.com, CBSSports.com, CBSCollegeSports.com, MaxPreps.com, CBSNews.com, last.fm, Wallstrip, MobLogic, CBS Radio and CBS Television Stations digital media platforms, and the distribution network of the CBS Audience Network, which is made up of more than 300 partner Web sites and reaches 82% of all online users in the United States.

CNET's Board of Directors has unanimously approved the merger agreement and recommends that CNET Networks stockholders accept the tender offer and tender their shares. The transaction is subject to customary conditions and is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2008.

Missouri Woman Indicted on Charges of Using MySpace to 'Cyber-Bully' 13-Year-Old Who Later Committed Suicide

A Missouri woman was indicted on May 15 on federal charges for fraudulently using an account on the social networking Web site MySpace, U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Thomas P. O'Brien said. The woman posed as a teenage boy who feigned romantic interest in a 13-year-old girl who later committed suicide after the "boy" spurned her and told her, among other things, that the world would be a better place without her.

Lori Drew, 49, of O'Fallon, Mo., was named in a four-count indictment returned this morning by a federal grand jury. The indictment charges one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress on the girl who, because of juvenile privacy rules, is referred to in the indictment only as M.T.M.

The indictment alleges that Drew, along with others, registered as a member of MySpace under the name "Josh Evans." Drew and her co-conspirators then used the Josh Evans account to contact M.T.M. and began what the girl believed was an on-line romance with a 16-year-old boy. In taking those actions, the indictment alleges, Drew and her co-conspirators violated MySpace's terms of service that prohibit users from, among other things, using fraudulent registration information, using accounts to obtain personal information about juvenile members, and using the MySpace communication services to harass, abuse or harm other members.

After approximately four weeks of flirtatious communications between "Josh Evans" and M.T.M., Drew and her co-conspirators broke off the relationship. Within an hour, M.T.M. had hanged herself in her room. She died the next day.

The conspiracy count carries a maximum statutory penalty of five years in federal prison. Each count of accessing protected computers, each of which alleges that the access was for the purpose of intentionally inflicting emotional distress on M.T.M., carries a maximum possible penalty of five years in prison.

Adobe to offer new Acrobat Connect Pro

Adobe Systems Incorporated on May 5 announced a new version of the Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro Web conferencing and eLearning solution.

Acrobat Connect Pro includes many new features for Web conferencing such as options for archiving and editing recorded online meetings; new presence capabilities that can allow federation with popular instant messaging (IM) clients; and powerful compliance and usage reporting tools. eLearning enhancements include break-out rooms to let students in virtual classes initiate separate conversations online; rapid authoring of video-based content; integration with Learning Management Systems (LMS) from Blackboard and SumTotal; and tools that track and organize online classes. Users also can easily tailor training sessions or meetings that help capture participants’ attention and increase knowledge retention, resulting in an online learning experience remarkably similar to an in-person class.

Combined with the new version of Adobe Presenter, also introduced on May 5, Acrobat Connect Pro can enable users to hold online meetings that incorporate Adobe Flash Player compatible presentations. Adobe Presenter can give virtually anyone the power to easily turn Microsoft PowerPoint presentations into multimedia experiences that include video, narration, animations, interactivity and advanced quizzes. New capabilities in this release include question pooling and randomization, easy-to-work-with video, and the ability to publish presentations to mobile devices or within PDF files.

Deployed using the Adobe Flash Player, already installed on more than 98 percent of Internet connected PCs worldwide, Acrobat Connect Pro lets virtually anyone connect to an online meeting or classroom instantly using a simple Web address regardless of operating system or browser version and without the need to download additional software.

Acrobat Connect Pro is expected to be available by the end of May 2008 on a hosted or on-premise basis. It will be available in English, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, and simplified Chinese.