(image via sfgate)
One of our favorite interactive media crushes has left the building to the crackling of electronic static. The Corsair has long digitally stalked CBSDigital's Larry Kramer, the teddybearish pioneer who said, famously, that CBS.com was going to be the networks cable play. According to Paidcontent:
"CBS is switching gears in digital, opting for someone with more of a rep for making deals than building companies. In: Quincy Smith as president of CBS Interactive. Out: Larry Kramer, the founder of CBS Marketwatch who joined CBS in 2005 to help create the digital foundation of a company that didn’t have one. Smith, 35, brings a reputation for the kind of aggressive behavior prized by CBS CEO Les Moonves. Most recently, Smith has been an investment banker at Allen & Co, where he worked on the Viacom-Neopets, Advertising.com-AOL and various Google deals; before that, he was at Netscape for five years and started a VC firm with James Barksdale. At CBS, Smith’s portfolio is company wide with the responsibility for bring together all elements of digital strategy—radio, outdoors, books, TV. Kramer focused primarily on TV, cable and CBS Sportsline.
"Smith tells Reuters in an interview: 'The important thing is that we get confidence internally on a set interactive strategy that will immediately change and be organic as we grow.'"
Immediately. Grow. Like the unpleasant Frestonmess (And, arguably, the TomCruising), Viacom is going aggro -- evry aggro -- with their corporate strategy. We imagine Methuselan Sumner, tearing himself away from the world class collection of tropical fish and the Bloomberg ticker just long enough to shot at his underling, the Dark Lord of the Sith, Les Moonves, "Off with his head!" before returning his laserlike gaze on the ticker price for Viacom.
We will surely miss Kramer, who made the networks-moving-online beat rather interesting. But, like the media whores we are, we will keep an open mind with Smith (The Corsair pours himself a Napoleonic brandy).
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