As I have been harping on for some time, the audience -- not some artificial destination site/walled garden -- is the network, and where the audience congregates traditional media networks are destined to follow. Such is the power and purpose of social media, as espoused in my blog post, "Social Media: It's About Breadcrumbs and Conversations.
It is from that perspective that I am happy to announce that my company, vSocial, has partnered with CBS Interactive on its new CBS Audience Network. Specifically, CBS has signed a distribution agreement with us that provides vSocial access to a library of short form video clips ranging from sports to news to drama, comedy, etc.
The goal is to leverage our platform and viral distribution tools to enable consumers to engage with and blog about CBS programs, connect with like minded individuals and create an extended web that does more than just begin and end at CBS.com.
I have previously blogged about the interesting dynamics between siblings Viacom and CBS, and their decidedly different approaches to social media (see, "Making sense of Google v. YouTube"), and the storyline just gets more interesting.
I will say that, far from window dressing, the CBS folks are earnest about embracing such loosely coupled approaches to programming, audience aggregation and network development, and I look forward to working with them.
Here is the official press release, and coverage from NewTeeVee, MediaPost and AdWeek.
