The Social

Some would say that peer-to-peer video start-up Joost, created by the founders of Skype and Kazaa, failed to live up to the overwhelming hype that surrounded it. CBS Interactive president Quincy Smith, whose CBS Audience Network of online video sites includes a partnership with Joost, isn't one of them.

Speaking to a small gathering of tech and media reporters at CBS' New York headquarters Thursday, Smith gave a firm "no" when asked if Joost--which requires a software download and has slipped from the Web video radar since its buzzworthy debut--was dead in the water. "(Mike) Volpe knows what he's doing," Smith said of the Cisco Systems veteran who serves as the start-up's CEO. "It's got a good team."

Smith did add that he thinks Joost should be Web-based, not a download.

And with regard to Hulu, the joint Web-video venture between NBC Universal and News Corp. that has turned out to be quite the pleasant surprise, Smith would not rule out the possibility that CBS might jump on board, presumably by adding Hulu to its list of Audience Network distribution partners--which include AOL, Bebo, Microsoft, Sling Media, Veoh, and CNET Networks, parent company of CNET News.com. He said that there are no technological barriers to bringing CBS' video content to Hulu and that CBS Interactive's "door is always open."

Regarding Hulu's team, Smith said, "We talk to them all the time.".

It's no secret: ad-supported streaming music, held up as an alternative to both paid downloads and free-for-all piracy, has hit some twists and snags. A number of well-funded start-ups, like SpiralFrog, dove into the space and few have emerged intact. Only one, Imeem, can really claim to be a success--it has licensing deals with all four major music labels--but it's still been criticized for a tepid user experience.

So it was a bit of a surprise when CBS' big announcement about Last.fm, the music-based social network it purchased last year, was the launch of a free, ad-supported streaming music service.

Previously, most music content on Last.fm had been limited to 30-second clips.

According to Quincy Smith, president of CBS Interactive (the CBS division that owns Last.fm), big media companies may be the key to making ad-supported music a success. "Only media can bring those kinds of sponsorship relationships," he said in an interview with CNET News.com, adding that broadband penetration has reached a point where streaming music is legitimately viable.

With the new on-demand music program from Last.fm, which launched Wednesday in the U.S., U.K., and Germany, CBS has all the majors on board as well as over 150,000 independent labels and artists. Additionally, it has an "artist royalty" program so that unsigned artists who upload their music to Last.fm will receive a cut of the ad revenue when a track is played.

Smith said that Last.fm's music recommendation and "scrobbling" engine may also give it an advantage in the ad-supported music space, because that data can potentially help advertisers choose where to place their ads. "You've got targetability," he said, "and not in a freaky, invasion-of-privacy way." Presumably, that could lead to better advertiser confidence and higher click-through rates. People who listen to a lot of pop, for example, could see ads for Justin Timberlake concert tickets; country fans could be served up Nascar ads, or movie soundtrack fans could see ads for the latest blockbusters.

But targeted advertising, like many of the other developments that CBS Interactive plans with Last.fm, hasn't been rolled out yet. "We wanted to make sure we got that announcement out there to the consumers first," Smith explained. Later, we'll start to see some of the projects that were rumored yesterday, when it became evident that Last.fm was making a big announcement--including, perhaps, a video-related service.

"We certainly own (the domain) Last.tv," Smith said.

But even an established media powerhouse like CBS hasn't been able to completely nail down the model. Last.fm's streaming service has already gained a bit of criticism because tracks can only be streamed three times--after that, the user is given the option to buy the track from a Last.fm retail affiliate partner like iTunes or Amazon MP3. When asked about this, Smith said that the three-song limit wasn't CBS' choice.

"It was a joint decision from all parties involved," he elaborated. "You've got to do the baby-step thing with these guys."

When CBS Interactive announced on Tuesday that its CBSNews.com property had entered a content partnership with Digg, there wasn't a whole lot of information released other than the fact that election-related headlines from Digg would appear on CBSNews.com and that the news site's political news and video clips would be accompanied by Digg buttons.

The amorphous press release was intentional, CBS Interactive President Quincy Smith said later Tuesday in an interview with CNET News.com. It's not always easy to deal with Digg's notoriously opinionated community, which has shown a tendency to cause a mild to major uprising if something pops up suggesting the site has made a move without the users in mind.

In the case of the CBSNews.com deal, Smith speculated that Digg users might think they were being force-fed news from CBS rather than being allowed to choose it themselves, and the company doesn't want Diggers to get the wrong idea. "The community...hates it when Digg deals with any kind of content partner," he said. "They don't want their community freaking out."

Quincy Smith

Smith emphasized that not only does CBS want to see its content on Digg, but it also wants CBS News readers to see what Digg users have to say. "Generally speaking, CBS News has to start getting the community to do more work. It has beautiful, top-tier editorial, but online breaking news is a reasonable commodity," he said. "Digg is a perfect partner in that area. I can see us doing a lot more with Digg. I can see us doing a lot more with other community-inspired sites."

CBS Interactive ultimately wants to see "content beyond politics" as part of the Digg partnership, Smith explained, and perhaps more Digg content on more CBS properties. "You can always assume we're going to try to do more with our partners as we go," he said. "We wouldn't have entered into this deal unless we thought there were more things to do not just with CBSNews.com but ultimately with the network as well."

So will CBS Interactive buy Digg, seeing as it's Web 2.0's perpetual acquisition gossip item? Smith, a Silicon Valley venture capital veteran, isn't saying anything. "We won't comment on the fun strategic market rumors," he said.

Under Smith's auspices, CBS Interactive has acquired social music site Last.fm and finance-related video blog Wallstrip,and has created its own online video syndication network.

For the time being, he's open to the fact that other news sites have partnerships with Digg and that CBS will ultimately have deals with other community sites, too. "There's nothing exclusive on it," Smith asserted. "There's no exclusivity on the Web, and when there is, it usually sucks."