BUSINESS BUZZ – CBS is buying CNET for $1.8 billion. In a surprise move, the broadcast giant is snapping up CNET’s large network of online sites.

The Best Links:

1. Is This CBS’s YouTube, or Something Worse?
2. CBS Makes Its Offer for $11.50 a Share
3. Why CBS Bought CNET, And Not The Other Way Around
4. “The Internet Suckers Another Old Media Company”

View the Buzz...

BUSINESS BUZZ – An attempt to gauge what people really think about brands via the power of tagging. Users are presented with a wide variety of brand logos — from ABC and Absolut to YouTube and Zune — and asked to tag them with the first word that pops into their heads. You can then see the user-generated tag cloud and see what other people think about the same brands.

The Best Links:

1. Brand Tags, Main Page
2. Guess The Brand!
3. Bud Light’s Brand Tags - Cheap
4. Linux’s Brand Tags - Penguin
5. TechCrunch’s Brand Tags - ?
6. Playboy’s Brand Tags - Boobs
7. Godin: “The magical way each and every one of these brands compels you to think is fascinating.”

View the Buzz...

BUSINESS BUZZ – The maker of Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep vehicles announced an offer that caps the price of gasoline at $2.99 a gallon for three years for people who buy or lease new vehicles from Wednesday through June 2. It doesn’t take a math expert to figure out that more fuel-efficient cars will save you more money in the long-run. However, a pair of blue plastic TruckNutz really only look good on a pick-up truck - so you’ve got a tough decision to make.

The Best Links:

1. Chrysler Delivers Poor Environmental Performance, Tries to Compensate with $2.99 Plan
2. Someone Does the Financial Analysis For You!
3. Here’s the Deal - Buy Or Lease New Vehicle, Get $2.99/gal. Gas for 3 Yrs.
4. A Way for Chrysler to Compete with Actual Fuel-Efficient Cars
5. A Plan That’s Supposed to Help “Working People”
6. “Chrysler criticized for $2.99 gas, Suzuki jumps on bandwagon “
7. “Chrysler’s desperation move: $2.99 gas for your shiny new SUV”
8. Chrysler’s Attempt at Reinvigorating SUV Sales

View the Buzz...

BUSINESS BUZZ – Don’t get all excited, there’s nothing to see here. You may have noticed an ad campaign online over the last month or so for a TV show called Scarlet, starring Natassia Malthe. As it turns out, there is no show, only a new line of LCD HDTVs from LG, as disappointed celebrities like Lindsay Lohan found out at last night’s “premiere.” Ha ha! Hoaxes: The new marketing frontier.

The Best Links:

1. “The nontraditional campaign hasn’t exactly ignited “Scarlet” fever online”
2. No, There’s No Show. Move Along
3. New Fake Show Pushes New Real LCD HDTVs
4. S C A R L E T - The Official Site (For the TVs!)
5. OMFG - They Tricked Lindsay Lohan and People From “The Hills”!!
6. “Things Aren’t What They Seem” Turns Out to Be Boringly True

View the Buzz...

BUSINESS BUZZ – Hotels abandoned before completion have an eerie presence. From Disney World to the sands of the Sinai, luxury hotels have become modern ruins when financing dries up. Here’s some spooky video footage and photo evidence of the abandoned skeletons.

The Best Links:

1. The Empty Disney Hotel at Pop Century
2. A Photo Tour of the Empty Portion of the Walt Disney World
3. Flickr Group: Abandoned Hotels
4. The Ghostly Skeleton Hotels of the Sinai

View the Buzz...

BUSINESS BUZZ – The managing editor of the Wall Street Journal is resigning. Brauchli’s resignation is reportedly amicable, but comes just four months after Rupert Murdoch’s takeover of the Journal, and one staffer at the paper says “this is a clear sign that it’s over.”

The Best Links:

1. Time Breaks the Story on Brauchli’s Resignation
2. “This is a clear sign that it’s over—the Dow Jones culture is dead.”
3. Denton’s Insightful Take on Brauchli’s Flight
4. Bye-Bye Brauchli
5. The Marcus Brauchli Round-Up, Day 1

View the Buzz...

BUSINESS BUZZ – A new Sony ad features downtown Miami being flooded with foam. Design and advertising blogs are all weighing in with comparisons to that one ad with the bouncy balls - seeing as how it was also made by London advertising agency Fallon, perhaps such comparisons are inevitable.

The Best Links:

1. Lots of Images on Sony’s Site
2. Miami En Foam
3. Sony’s Long Awaited ‘Foam City’ Arrives
4. Making of Foam City
5. Miami Sony Foam City Time Lapse
6. Foam City skateboard
7. From a Design Perspective
8. Sony Foam City Ad Turns Miami Into Worlds Biggest Bubble Bath …
9. Sony Releases Amazing “Foam City” Ad
10. WOW Foam City

View the Buzz...

BUSINESS BUZZ – Fallout from Facebook’s Beacon ad platform takes on the concrete form of a civil lawsuit. The Beacon backlash continues: A woman in Texas has filed suit against Blockbuster for revealing her rental choices without permission, violating the 1988 Videotape Privacy Protection Act. Facebook isn’t named in the suit.

The Best Links:

1. “Poison Ivy” Fans Should Be Wary
2. The Plaintiff Calls Out Blockbuster for Invasion of Privacy
3. Perhaps This Will Revive the Beacon Backlash!
4. First Beacon Lawsuit Quietly Filed in Dallas County

View the Buzz...

BUSINESS BUZZ – A new search engine geared towards providing results specifically relevant to black people. Just launched by IAC, Rushmore Drive is based on the Ask.com search engine, but gives greater weight to results geared toward perceived black interests.

The Best Links:

1. RushmoreDrive: Discover More Here
2. Rushmore Ranks Results Based on Relevancy to Black People
3. Is This the Segregated Web?
4. User Voting May Alter the Results
5. “IAC wants black people to love Rushmore Drive”

View the Buzz...

BUSINESS BUZZ – Meet Jennifer Anderson, the girl whose life was changed through one stock photography photo session. After a one-off modeling session in Portland, Anderson went on to be one of the most-used stock photo models ever, though it’s not like she made a dime extra for it. She started her own blog to join the chorus of blog posts about her. From book covers to college advertisements to homepages, her image is truly everywhere.

The Best Links:

1. Everywhere Girl, on Book Covers Everywhere
2. A Headswimming Compilation of Everywhere Girl Links
3. Everywhere Girl Across the Web
4. The Everywhere Girl Blog
5. Remember Everywhere Girl?
6. Anderson Tells the Story of the Infamous Photo Shoot

View the Buzz...