I know the focus is mostly on development around here but is there anyone that can share some of their business development experience?

I'm interested in learning to identify opportunities and want to understand the process of building "strategic partnerships".

How does something like CNN or Microsoft/Facebook, Digg/Microsoft come about? What type of justification is needed to get something like this pushed through a large corporation? Is it mostly about traffic and as a result revenue?

How do you argue against the "Why don't we just do it ourselves?" when you're not at a Digg or Facebook scale?

I'd be interested in hearing what everyone's thoughts are...

thanks