MUMBAI: US media conglomerate CBS‘ division CBS Interactive is partnering with community-building websites and social application providers to add greater user functionality to the online CBS Audience Network.

The announcement includes deals with new companies as well as expanded relationships with existing CBS Audience Network partners.

Through these online properties and social application providers, users can easily incorporate CBS clips into their profiles, websites, blogs, widgets, wikis, and community pages. This enables them to discover and personalise CBS content and to use it to communicate with others. At the same time, CBS gains promotional value online while learning about its audience.

The online partners that currently make up the syndication side of the CBS Audience Network, as announced last month, include AOL, Microsoft, CNet Networks, Comcast, Joost, Bebo, Brightcove, Netvibes, Sling Media and Veoh. CBS also has distribution deals with Amazon, Apple and Yahoo, among others.

New online partners adding increased functionality to CBS Audience Network include:

-- Automattic - Automattic‘s flagship product is WordPress, the blogging software used by millions of bloggers and media publishers. Automattic also operates Akismet, the leading anti-spam service for blogs, social networks, forums and wikis.

-- Clearspring - It provides cross-platform widget services. They make it easy to use content and services from across the Internet to weave personalized experiences. With their flagship service, digital content and service providers can easily package, distribute, and analyze the performance of widgets via a single platform.

-- Dave Networks - This is the first provider of an integrated video distribution and social community platform designed to ignite brands. Boasting a robust set of software features, Dave empowers brands to build digital ecosystems through interactive video social community portals that function as a public hub where customers, fans, and users can develop dynamic personalised profiles, upload and share content, blog/video blog, comment on message boards.

-- Goowy Media - Goowy develops innovative online products and services including yourminis, a widget platform that simplifies widget development, syndication and measurement for content owners and 3rd party developers. In addition, yourminis.com offers a destination gallery that allows consumers to discover Widgets for one‘s Blog, website, personalized startpage, or desktop.

-- Meebo - This is a website for instant messaging that lets one IM from any computer and access all of one‘s friends in one place. meebo recently announced ‘meebo rooms,‘ places where users can chat and view media live with their friends.

-- Ning - This platform allows anyone to create their own social network about anything. The free service allows anyone with an idea for a social network to choose a combination of features (videos, blogs, photos, forums, etc.) from an ever-growing list of options and customize their social network in any way they want to.

-- RockYou! - RockYou! is the leading provider of widgets on the web. The company serves over 150M widgets viewed per day to over 200 countries on social networks like MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, and Bebo.

RockYou! widgets include photo slideshows, glitter text and voicemail accessories that are simple to use and enable people to frequently refresh their online style. RockYou!‘s widgets enable advertisers to connect to an established online community that embraces viral user generated content and is one of the first sites to offer revenue sharing opportunities for partners.

CBS Interactive president Quincy Smith says, "Today, we are taking the CBS Audience Network directly to the user. In launching the CBS Audience Network we solidified our position as the most widely distributed professional content provider on the Web thanks to our great video distribution partners.

"We now want to empower our audience to be creative and deepen their experience with our content by allowing them to share and embed CBS-provided clips to their blogs, wikis, widgets, community sites and whatever else gets thrown our way. We are delighted to have so many quality partners -- established and start ups -- helping to bring CBS content to the online community."