As the premier technology news outlet and a respected online brand, CNet is right in our wheelhouse and so makes an ideal partner for Sphere.  A special thanks to Dan Farber at CNet/CBS for making this happen.  We look forward to doing great things together!!

If you like keeping up with sports, videos, tidbits and scoops, you’ll want to check out the new CBS sports Network site, Fans Only. If you’re a serious sports fan, I think you’ll love their new site. It’s a social networking platform that you can personalize (similar to NetVibes or PageFlakes) to display up to the minute news from thousands of sources, virtual tailgates, blogs and game picks. Fans can free create pages to follow their favorite teams, adding multimedia content such as streaming video highlights, statistics, polls, rankings and chats. This is very novel. It’s fun, it’s interactive, confident and progressive to let readers “slice and dice” media.

I’m a big sports fan, the kind of guy that naively believes the Cubs are going to win it all, year after year. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’m super excited about Sphere partnering with CBS College Sports to connect their brand of sports news to conversational media. Just like technology, politics and entertainment, connecting sports news to conversational media is a natural fit, the blogosphere is full of great, cutting edge entertainment content.

Our team has worked closely with Patty Hirsch and Ellie Hirschhorn to scope out the Sphere Related Content service and implement. Sphere is a featured tab in the top navigation bar, enabling core functionality to the site. Just click on the Sphere tab and you’ll see what’s buzzing in sports. The drop down menu enables you to narrow your focus to Professional or Collegiate Basketball, Baseball, Football and Hockey. Great folks to work with, open to new ideas and the type of partner that just gets it. Congrats to the team at Fans Only and CSTV for launching a great service.

One of the great things he shared during his speech is his belief that “Content is King”. It’s not just a throw-away line for him, nor CBS, it’s a philosophy they embrace wholeheartedly and one in which has driven their progressive outreach to bloggers. In 2007, CBS added our Contextual Widget connecting their content to the views of bloggers – you can find the Sphere icon at the bottom of all CBS articles. A few weeks ago, CBS took another important step, displaying links on each article page to bloggers writing about politics (ie, although it’s still available, you know longer have to click on the icon to discover who in the blogosphere is writing content that is contextually relevant to the discussion) . This is a more visible opportunity to connect Mainstream Media with the individual voice of bloggers. Just scroll to the bottom of any CBS Politics articles and you’ll find three links to blogs who are adding their perspective to the conversation.

We’re all giddy over today’s announcement of our newest partner, CBS News. The Sphere Related Content widget has been added to their site, creating another great opportunity for Internet readers to connect to the blogosphere. CBS is one of those venerable brands that makes you feel special with whom to be a partner. CBS has a long tradition of innovation and journalism excellence. Embracing the blogosphere is yet another example of their open and progressive approach to creating the most compelling user experience for their customers.

CBS News content is also being crawled and indexed at Sphere.com, giving our users another quality content source. Thanks to Betsy Morgan and Bill Martens at CBS News for embracing the blogosphere and for their unwavering support in partnering with Sphere.