Living in the luxury of a cozy relationship with shareholder Intel, CNET is readying yet another site for the technocurious, due to launch before year's end. Billed as a compendium of "interactive consumer reports of hardware," the searchable database of product reviews and such will slide into CNET's computers.com address, say analysts, who explain that the advertising-driven site will get a huge shot in the arm from Intel's recent decision to spend more on Web promotions.
The site will take prospective computer buyers through the entire decision-making process, educating them about available features, and showing them where their selection can be purchased. CNET, however, is not getting into the hardware sales business, said spokeswoman Karen Wood.
Still, it is more than likely that the site - which won't be limited to PCs, but will include modems, printers, and all manner of peripherals - will link directly to online retailers. Daniel Rimer, an analyst at Hambrecht & Quist (a CNET underwriter), said: "I'm assuming [the link] will be seamless and fairly invisible to the consumer."
Even so, potential cash bounties paid by eager PC retailers don't add up to much of a revenue model, say analysts, who instead point at advertising as the king of this show. "This will be an obvious, evident place for PC hardware manufacturers to advertise," Rimer said, mentioning Intel's new ad program in his next breath.
The chipmaker last week announced that it has expanded its program to provide matching advertising funds for PC manufacturers with "Intel Inside" products. Previously, Intel spent its advertising dollars - which have totaled US$3.4 billion since 1991 - on broadcast and print campaigns. Now it has opened its pockets to online advertising as well, with analysts projecting the program to unleash an annual $150 million on the Web, making Intel the largest online advertiser.
"That [$150 million program] is significant, and frankly that's better than a cut of hardware sales," said Tim Albright, an analyst at Cowen & Co., putting together the two and two of Intel's program to get PC manufacturers advertising online and on the CNET site, which appeals to those same advertisers. "CNET is very opportunistic, and this is an opportunity to take advantage of their unique exposure through their relationship with Intel," Albright added.
The idea for the site has been germinating for more than a year and will be "very deep," said Wood, who could not name a launch date, but said the project will likely be announced officially in October. She said she didn't know how many people were working on it, but explained that most of the content will be repurposed from the extensive product reviews on CNET.com and news updates from News.com.
"It fits perfectly into the CNET model," Albright said. The company has built out much of its network by building critical mass, in terms of both content and audience, and then spinning out another site with low start-up costs. Snap Online, a service that will provide an AOL-meets-Yahoo entryway to the Web, is the exception to that rule. The company has spent millions on the project, due to launch in September.
