CBS has acquired another Internet entertainment web site, adding celebrity gossip site Dotspotter to their growing stable of properties.
Some of the other sites CBS (CBS-A) has purchased is Last.fm, which is a social networking music site, and Wallstrip, which features financial news via video.
Founder of Dotspotter was former Yahoo (YHOO) exec Anthony Soohoo, who was able to turn the company over for $10 million quick ones. The site had been online for about a year.
It seems like a number of the traditional media companies are watching new media startups, as they work the kinks out of the system, and let them be their research and development department. From there they are buying them up before they take off too much and are too financially prohibitive to buy.
Another value in buying these types of Web sites is branding is no longer connected to a company anymore in the entertainment industry, but the TV show, blog, film or Web site.
This is a reason CBS and others must buy these growing properties. If CBS had something called CBS Celebrity Gossip, or something like that, nobody would be drawn to it because of the "CBS" tag or logo.
On the other hand, visitors don't seem to mind that a traditional media company buys a stand alone web property either, as long as it continues on with what attracted them to it in the first place, and doesn't turn it into something different.
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