Big media companies: "We buy online properties. Now what?"

Big media companies, particularly in the U.S., are good at snapping up new media opportunities; unfortunately, they don't know what to do with them when they get them, says a story in CNet. It cites a number of examples:

• Hearst Publications purchased social-shopping site Kaboodle
• The New York Times "absorbed" the Freakonomics blog
• Bookmarking start-up Clipmarks is rumored to be in the midst of a deal with Forbes magazine.
• Discovery Communications snapped up eco-blog TreeHugger.
  
• CBS Interactive acquired both music community Last.fm and finance video blog Wallstrip.

"More than a few of the recent acquisitions have so far been letdowns, "said the story, citing the Conde Nast purchase of Reddit last year, only to see the social news site increasingly eclipsed by competitor Digg, which remains independent.

And the users of the formerly independent sites often aren't happy, either.

Unfortunately, it doesn't always go over so well with the user base--just think of all the fake Rupert Murdoch profiles that turned up on MySpace after the social-networking site was acquired. TreeHugger's left-leaning visitors who posted comments, for example, were split about the prospect of big-media ownership. "The risk is that even if Discovery is a great partner now, it will be bought out by Rupert Murdoch or some other ultra-conservative," one said, adding that "you just never know what will happen when you transfer control to a large corporate entity." Another said, "I do understand that Discovery will help the message grow, but does it have a heart?"