Well, I guess there is a little bit of acquisition fever going around the technical press. Yesterday CBS acquired CNet Networks, and today Conde Nast acquired Ars Technica. Conde Nast owns Wired, and this means that Ars Technica will basically become part of Wired.com. The news was broken by TechCrunch, who report they’ve confirmed it. The price is unknown, but TechCrunch believes it is around $25 million.

So, where’s my buyout offer?

Here’s a marriage of old and new - CBS just made a deal to buy CNet Networks for $1.8 Billion, according to MarketWatch. CBS is paying a 45% premium for CNET, they must want to expand their Internet presence rapidly.

“CNet Networks will add a tremendous platform to extend our complementary entertainment, news, sports, music and information content to a whole new global audience,” CBS Chief Leslie Moonves said in a statement. “Together, CBS and CNet Networks will have significant additional exposure to the fastest- growing advertising sector and can accelerate our growth through a number of new content, promotion and advertising initiatives.”

Upon closing, CNet Networks’ sites will be combined with CBS’s interactive businesses, which include CBS.com, CBSSports.com, MaxPreps.com, CBSNews.com, last.fm, Wallstrip and MobLogic.

I really, really hope that CBS doesn’t screw CNet when ‘combining’ it with their existing properties. I rather like CNET content. I’ve been using last.fm since the early days, and it doesn’t seem to have suffered under CBS, so I have some hope. I’d just hate for this to end up like TechTV after they got merged into G4.

I mentioned recently that I was laid off on Friday, March 28. Today I started a new job - with Sling Media. I’ll be working with Sling as a contractor, as a Senior Project Manager. Right now it is a short term contract, but I’m hopeful that it may eventually parlay into a permanent engagement. I wanted to mention it as I cover Sling as well as their competitors and related issues. I don’t foresee any changes to the site, though I will probably add a disclaimer to any Sling-related posts to make the relationship clear.

I’d had conversations with Sling on and off for a long time now about potentially joining the company, including in person at CES. And recently the suggestion of working as a part-time contractor had come up as a possibility. By coincidence they contacted me on March 28th, just after I’d been told I was laid off, to see if I was still interested in doing some part-time work. Since I found myself with a sudden surplus of free time we expanded the contract terms beyond the part time work. The timing couldn’t have been better.

Readers of the blog know that I’m a long-time Slingbox user myself, and a big fan of the company’s products and direction, so I’m very excited to be working there. And I’m hopeful that this contract is only the beginning of a long-term engagement.

I’ve been meaning to post this since CES ended two weeks ago - time flies.

This was my fifth CES in a row (and I’m already thinking about next year), so maybe I’m getting a little jaded, but I was a bit disappointed this year. There didn’t seem to be any ‘hot’ item, something that everyone was talking about, some new idea that fired people up. For example, a couple of years ago a lot of people were talking about Sling Media when they launched their first Slingbox. I don’t think it was just me, since I had similar conversations with a number of people on the show floor, the monorail, etc - and it seemed to be a common sentiment. Sure, there was a 150″ TV, which was impressive, but it is really just a bigger TV. You kind of expect bigger TVs each year. Pioneer’s 9mm thick Kuro was also impressive, but it isn’t something we’ll be able to buy for a few years, if ever. So this year seemed to be more evolutionary and predictable. The only real surprise news was Warner’s Blu-ray announcement, which certainly got a lot of buzz throughout the show.

Sure, there were some cool announcements, and specifically relating to this blog, and my interests, we had TiVo’s web video announcemnt, several Sling Media announcements, etc. But it just wasn’t as big as past years with the TiVo Series3 being unveiled or the initial announcement of the SlingCatcher. Oh well, you can’t have big news every year - there’s always next year.

There was one item that I didn’t expect to inspire my techno-lust to the degree it did - the Optimus Maximus keyboard from Art. Lebedev Studio. I’ve been watching the development of this since it was first shown as a concept several years ago, and it seemed to be perpetual vapor ware. CES was my first chance to see it in person, and I expected it to be nifty, but not to be as cool as it was. Photos just don’t do it justice, the keys look great, and they really ‘pop’. The colors are bright, the graphics are sharp, and if I had $1,500 to spare I’d probably buy one. Of course, since my main personal machine is a laptop, it would be a little silly. But it is just so cool in action. Even simple things like the case of the characters displayed on the keys changing when you press shift inspires my techno-lust. I can see this kind of tech spreading as the parts become cheaper.

But the real highlight of CES for me was getting to meet people I’d only seen online previously. I got to meet Ben Drawbaugh and Steven Kim of Engadget/EngadgetHD, Charlie White and Curtis Walker of Gizmodo, and, of course, Dave Zatz of Zatz Not Funny (and Sling Media). There were a few people I was hoping to see that I didn’t manage to catch in the chaos, but it is nice to get to meet some folks in person. Maybe one of the years some company (like Sling perhaps?) will throw a little gathering for tech bloggers. I don’t mean a press event, but sponsor a gathering just to get everyone together in one place to finally put faces to the names. (And if someone has done this, damn, I didn’t know about it.)

I’m already looking forward to next year.

Scientific Atlanta is now Cisco, OCAP… I mean the OpenCable Platform is now Tru2Way, and, as of October 1, 2008 Matsushita will be Panasonic. After 90 years Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. has decided to adopt the name of their most famous consumer brand, Panasonic, as their corporate identity. The Matsushita name will be retired in favor of Panasonic Corp. worldwide. The company had been named after founder Konosuke Matsushita. Via Engadget.

I haven’t shopped at a physical CompUSA in a long time, especially since they’ve already closed all of the stores that used to be in my neck of the woods - the closest one is 38 miles away. I think I have picked up a couple of things from their website here and there, more recently, but they’re not the first place I tend to look. And I guess I’m not the only one, since they’ve been sold to the Gordon Brothers Group, a restructuring and investment firm.

The remaining 103 CompUSA retail locations will remain open through the holiday season, with discounts on computers and electronics, before being shuttered. So there could be some good deals as they look to clear out the stock in the remaining stores. The remaining CompUSA assets will be sold off piecemeal, and there are discussions underway about selling off their services business, CompUSA TechPro, and the CompUSA.com online business.

So keep an eye out for clearance sales if you have a CompUSA in your area. Sometimes you can get some very nice deals when a retailer liquidates their stock.

Spotted in Engadget.

EchoStar Communications Corporation, the parent company of DISH Network, is changing its name to - DISH Network Corporation. Yes, the parent is taking on the name of the child, to better reflect their core business. EchoStar… I mean DISH Network, will also be spinning off some of its holdings into a new company to initially be known has the EchoStar Holding Company (EHC). EHC will basically pick up the non-DISH Network businesses formerly held by EchoStar.

EHC will have two main business units - set-top boxes (STB) and fixed satellite services (FSS). The STB business makes STBs primarily for DISH Network, of course, but they also sell STBs to other operators around the world. And, once the acquisition is complete, Sling Media will also be part of the STB business. By separating from DISH Network, any conflict of interest is reduced and the EHC should be able to expand their STB business with additional customers.

EchoStar owns or leases capacity on nine satellites, has seven digital broadcast centers, and fiber optic POPs in 150 cities. The FSS business could offer network capacity to 3rd parties, via satellite or terrestrial networks.

There have been on-again, off-again rumors that AT&T is considering acquiring DISH Network. It could make some sense, as AT&T is already partnered with DISH Network and resells the satellite TV service to their customers. AT&T could find some synergies with the U-Verse fiber offering as well. The spin-off would make it easier for AT&T, or any other party, to acquire the now standalone DISH Network satellite TV operation without dealing with the other businesses.

And, in a final step, it is anticipated that, after all of these changes shake out, EHC will also change its name - to EchoStar Communications Corporation.

So, to sum up, EchoStar is divesting itself of the business units that aren’t DISH Network, and changing its name to DISH Network. Then the divested units will change their name to EchoStar. So why not just divest DISH Network as its own company? I’m sure it makes sense, but I’m not a corporate lawyer.

You just have to love these corporate naming shenanigans.

Picked up from GigaOM.