When I first heard last week that CBS was in the process of buying Wallstrip, I thought it was just the latest example of a stupid purchase by old media desperately trying to get a piece of new media growth. I didn't understand why CBS, with all of its production resources, couldn't easily replicate Wallstrip's offering, which is a web show that profiles one stock each day. I didn't write anything because I wanted to hear the explanations.

Good thing I waited. Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist at Union Square Ventures who invested in Wallstrip, explained in a post today the purchase was motivated more by technology than content. Wilson wrote CBS believes Wallstrip will be valuable because of all the things the Wallstrip team has learned since it launched in October:

1) How to get the show on every video service quickly and easily.
2) How to tag and promote the show on each and every service so it actually gets seen.
3) How to measure and track all the views.
4) How to reconcile all the different measurements you get.
5) How to get subscribers in iTunes, FeedBurner, and YouTube.
6) How to make a web site that communicates what the show is quickly and easily.
7) How to do advertising in a way that doesn't get in the way of the viewer.
8) How to get the show indexed by ticker in the major finance portals.

CBS isn't disclosing an acquisition price but it couldn't be too much. Still, it's probably more than ten times the $600,000 Wallstrip raised to launch. The lesson for other web video producers is that there may be more to your company than the content you're creating. The insights you're gaining into the production process may well end up being more coveted.

Tags: cbs, wallstrip, vc, venture+capital