AOL Fight Narrows To Two Players 124
BucksCountyCycleGeek writes "Now that Yahoo! has dropped out of the race to control AOL, the field of contenders has narrowed to Microsoft and Google. While antitrust issues continue to cloud Microsoft's bid, it is getting pretty clear that AOL wants payment in cash and not Internet stock. While Google has worked with AOL in the past, Microsoft's resources dwarf them for the moment." From the CNN/Money article: "Time Warner accepted AOL's stock when the old line media company agreed in 2000 to be purchased by the Internet service provider, a deal that proved a disaster for Time Warner's stock value. Yahoo! executives also had concerns about the valuation Time Warner was seeking and possible difficulties integrating the two businesses after any deal, a person close to Yahoo! told the paper."
Yesterday's technology (Score:5, Insightful)
1. "The Internet is the web," whoever makes the content wins (I call it the super BBS text file repository)
2. "The Internet is about connecting people together through my rose-colored lenses."
Both business markets are not ally valid anymore. Smaller ISPs seem to gain users by not making themselves visible as the middleman. The more you've noticed your ISP, the more I bet you've been frustrated.
Creating web content is better performed by billions of people than by dozens. CmdrTaco edits an article, but people come here for the +5'd comments. CmdrTaco couldn't get many +5's on his own (maybe -1 Redundants).
The future, to me, is how to collect all those billions of opinions and creations and make it specifically friendly to every individual user.
Google is heading in the correct direction. I let most of my domain names lapse because of Google. Yet they're still not there yet.
The ultimate web company has to be able to give you what you want, immediately, but also correctly give you items you need even if you didn't realize you needed them.
*Targeted ads you really want to see.
*Content that may be different than what you're used to, but still informative or useful to you.
*Access to information by only knowing some vague part of it. Find that TV show from a line or two. Find that song or book the same way.
*Compensate content creators somehow.
AOL is none of these things. They're an online newspaper and amusement park. *Yawn* I wouldn't pay $5 for them.
Plus, how many people "hate" the name over their junk mail and bad cancellation policy?
As for Time Warner stock, would you want a part of Time? Warner? Maybe in 1985.
Re:Yesterday's technology (Score:4, Interesting)
But, If you've done business with AOL in recent months, you know that neither of your 2 categories are going to be true for much longer.
They're opening up, they're making many of their internal services public, and they're going to start pushing some very good content to the masses in the very near future. It's lined up. It's almost ready. It's completely new for AOL, and it's designed to completely change the mentality described in your post.
Re:Yesterday's technology (Score:2)
Good hunting.
Re:Yesterday's technology (Score:3, Insightful)
The real question is, if their business model is so bad, why are Google and Microsoft even interested? What's the point? This model obviously only worked in the dial-up age when you had a captive audience (I remember my first internet experiences with AOL
Re:Yesterday's technology (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Yesterday's technology (Score:2)
Re:Yesterday's technology (Score:1)
Re:Yesterday's technology (Score:5, Interesting)
You bring up some excellent points, although I think there might be people that still want the hand-holding experience initially, I just don't think it's necessary or desirable for many, and will be for even less, as net usage becomes more and more ubiquitous.
As to the ISP, you're dead on-I pay them to provide me a pipe and leave me alone. The only time I have to care that they exist is when that pipe ceases to work. Now, that doesn't happen often, and they're very responsive to problems, but by definition, when I'm talking to them, there's -already- something wrong.
I don't want "targeted content" from my ISP, I don't even use their mail accounts. Fortunately, I've got a good one-they've got all the standard crap in their AUP that you're not supposed to do, but they sure don't seem to actually care if you do it. (Not that I would, of course, do any of it. Just hypothetically. Really.) This is a Good Thing (TM), both for me and for them, because harassment from them over it would be just another (unpleasant) reminder of their existence. And for me, I require basically -no- support (other then when their hardware fails), they won't support Linux anyway, so you're rather on your own if you don't want to do the Microsoft or Apple bit. In that sense, I'm the best kind of customer-I send them their check and leave them alone.
Come to think of it, I'd sure love to see a discounted service offering like that-provider cuts the price in half, and in exchange, they support absolutely nothing except the hardware outside. Now that's sure something I'd look into, especially if it offered very high speeds and didn't (even technically) then forbid you from doing anything worthwhile with them. I'd sure also love to see some worthwhile upload speeds.
Creating web content is better performed by billions of people than by dozens. CmdrTaco edits an article, but people come here for the +5'd comments. CmdrTaco couldn't get many +5's on his own (maybe -1 Redundants).
By definition, the power of the net is that anyone can create content. Also by definition, a good part of that will be crap, but I've sure found a lot of gems too. Make it easier to sort the gems from the garbage, and I'll be very interested. Google's ranking system really does seem to do well at this, at least for sites that are already relatively popular, but I'd love to see more resources that gear toward more obscure content.
For the rest-Google's actually got the targeted advertising bit down. I've got adblock right here, and I block most everything. But I leave the google ads alone. I quite often find them relevant and useful, and take me to something I might actually be interested in purchasing, but at the same time, they're quiet and unobtrusive. They don't jangle in my face, visually distract from the content I'm trying to view, or (ABSOLUTE WORST SIN, and thank goodness for flashblock) make noise.
Different content? Absolutely. Maybe a "recommendation" system? I'm not sure how it would be implemented, but I think it could be. Although, of course, hyperlinks take us a good way there already.
Also correct on the TV show/songs/books-although I find it's actually easy with songs if you know a line, that line along with "lyrics" usually brings it right up. TV shows sometimes have a transcript posted, so a line for them can quite often hit as well. Obviously, publishers frown on having "transcripts" of their books posted, so that's a little harder...hell, they're even trying to stop Google from doing it in a way that would benefit them immensely.
*Compensate content creators somehow.
You mean they're going to start PAYING me to write those +5...oh...damn. Well, it was a nice thought. In all seriousness though, most who put "content" up don't need or want paid-certainly, no one's paying me to post here, it's just something to do. I enjoy the opportunity to converse, debate, and read what others doing the same have to say, that's payment enough. As for those who do, I like the EFF's collective license model, but other ones exist too. Hopefully it'll come down to something a lot better then the current system of draconian copyright controls. I'm not holding my breath, but I am still holding out hope.
Dunno if I agree (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know where you live, but in my area (San Francisco) the local broadband providers are fiercely competing on the basis of add-on services. Comcast, for example, is selling streaming video of news clips, sports, music videos, etc. SBC DSL is trying more aggressively to sell on price, but they too bundle all kinds of anti-virus tools, etc.
The pr
Re:Yesterday's technology (Score:2)
ABsolutely not. Lets take it point by p
MS + AOL (Score:2)
Re:MS + AOL (Score:1)
It's like a cosmic battle of good versus evil to control the souls of millions.
Re:MS + AOL (Score:2)
Re:MS + AOL (Score:1)
you run your AOL client on top of Microsoft Windows. Wasn't that one way to get Windows 3.1 to connect to the internet? Now if Microsoft owned AOL, perhaps the
code could be "put together" in the same way that MSIE is a part of Windows. Then it might be
more stable. It's pretty good right now, but probably bloated. Maybe the combo can be reduced in size. Running "AOL" on Linux? Maybe a clone will emerge that will offer t
Re:MS + AOL (Score:1)
errp? (Score:3)
Re:errp? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:errp? (Score:1)
Die.
Re:errp? (Score:1)
Re:errp? (Score:2)
Oh well, I'm getting tired of them anyway. Their search engine sucks ass. It gives too many results and 99% of them you don't even give a shit about. It's near impossible to find the data you want anymore.
Re:errp? (Score:1)
Huh? I'm not a Google fanboy, but I don't think it's possible to say their search engine sucks. Care to suggest a better one?
Maybe you should take a look at Google Operators [google.com].
Google's "bidding" on traffic. (Score:2)
Anyway, if Yahoo or MS/MSN bought AOL, that traffic instantly goes away. That's the reason that I've heard for Google even being interested in AOL. It's worth mentioning that Google is by no means a monopoly in search traffic. It's probably pretty c
AOL Bidding (Score:5, Funny)
Google: Me Too!
Its all about the Pentiums (Score:1)
downloadin pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar?
Re:AOL Bidding (Score:5, Funny)
Re:AOL Bidding (Score:3, Funny)
More like...
OMGLOLU2!!!?????
Re:AOL Bidding (Score:3, Funny)
MS: You take AOL.
Google: No, you take it!
MS: No, you!
Google: You!
We're talking about AOL here.
Hey Mikey! (Score:2)
Who will be the AOL Mikey?
Re:AOL Bidding (Score:2)
Wait...
Re:Massive Ad-Revenue (Score:1)
Even if the AOL name may be crap, there's a lot of ad-revenue floating in there. Between the user base (AOL Websites, AOL Messenger (big!)), there's a lot of advertising.
Also remember that AOL (IIRC) owns Netscape. Mozilla is a spawn of Netscape, who still contributes to it's development. This is a move for Google to support more Open-source.
Re:Massive Ad-Revenue (Score:2)
In the end, Google wins with the uneducated poor people that are susceptible to advertising, or even notice ads. Microsoft has no use for them.
But really, we're all just better off without
Re:AOL Bidding (Score:2)
If MS buys AOL, the slashdot readers who hate MS win, because I don't think that even MS could survive that acquisition (look what it did to Time Warner). What are they thinking? Wow, now we'll have MSN AND AOL... the two most popular ISPs on the planet!
If Google buys AOL, we can count on them FINALLY doing something evil, right? All of you "Google is evil because people want to work there" people will be able to watch Google tank from an acquisition.
I guess that there's something for e
Re:AOL Bidding (Score:2)
AOL purchased TIme Warner, not the other way around.
Aol is a missed opportunity (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow.. (Score:1)
Re:Wow.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft, on the other hand, well... apart from bolstering their MSN messenger network and traffic through their web services (not a source of revenue for them, really), I can't think of
Re:Wow.. (Score:2)
Re:Wow.. (Score:2)
Wouldn't they get Nullsoft as well? So it could be bye-bye WinAmp if Microsoft wins, or the Google Media Player if Google wins....
What else does AOL own?
Re:Wow.. (Score:2)
Re:Wow.. (Score:1)
Re:MS and AOL (Score:2)
AOL wants cash? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, that's not my professional opinion - I Am Not A Stock Broker.
Really Crappy Software (Score:2, Flamebait)
1) Crappy, Buggy Software
2) A User base too stupid to realize that there are better alternatives
3) High Prices
4) They rely more heavily on maketing than technical superiority
OMFG, rush them to the altar and see what kind of a two-headed freak baby they produce. It should be well worth it's weight in amusement value alone!
2 cents,
Queen B
Re:Really Crappy Software (Score:2)
Item 1 - Crappy Buggy Software - How many of you have fixed PC's that were crashing due to the AOL superfriendly software??? As for Microsoft, enough said.
Item 2 - User base too stupid to realize that are better alternatives - Ok, maybe it's just me, but how dumb do you have to be to pay $24.95 a month for dial up? I pay $36.00 a month for a 7MB/sec fiber connection. Dial up from good reputable carriers fairly easy to come by at $9.95 a month. Furthermore, AOL is offering it's
Just learning from history (Score:2)
For the conspiracy theorists out there. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:For the conspiracy theorists out there. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:For the conspiracy theorists out there. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:For the conspiracy theorists out there. (Score:2)
Google provides search technology to AOL and gives AOL a cut of the advertising revenue generated by those searches. AOL earned $300 million from Google search ad revenue last year.
Re:For the conspiracy theorists out there. (Score:1)
the price for MSFT. Microsoft already has MsNBC which has
been a pretty poor online play. Presumably Google has their
numbers and Microsoft their own. Now the game theorists get
to analyze the situation and decide what to do. Is Microsoft
bluffing? Is Google really serious about AOL? I'm guessing
that they are serious since I remember approx 1/2 of Google's
revenue came from wholesale search deals.. but that was a couple
years ago. Interesting none the
Buying AOL may be Google's first big mistake. (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope buying AOL is not Google's first huge mistake. Google should offer no more than $6.50 and free soft drinks.
Recently, someone associated with Time Warner (Parsons?) has been putting out a lot of baloney about the value of AOL.
Re:Buying AOL may be Google's first big mistake. (Score:1)
Dumb people use Google too. [laze.net]
Sincerely,
Internet
Re:Buying AOL may be Google's first big mistake. (Score:1)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
AIM (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:AIM (Score:1)
Re:AIM (Score:2)
Re:AIM (Score:2)
AOL (Score:2)
AOL sucks so hard that they should sell vacuum cleaners.
This is not a troll. It's the truth after I was "mysteriously" signed up for their dial-up and they started charging my card, even though I don't have a phone!!
Time Warner has mismanaged AOL (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm a single guy with no kids, and for me, AOL doesn't have much to offer. But I know quite a few parents with small kids who are looking for good parental controls. If Time Warner used AOL's parental controls, enforced them through the cable modem, and pushed hard to make a kid/family friendly service, I'm sure they'd do very well with it.
Every parent of a 10 year old I know is convinced of two things about the net. First, their kids *need* it to be competitive in school. And second of all, it's a terribly dangerous and predatory place for kids. No one has a good answer for those parents. The best people can do is say, "Put the computer in the family room, so you can watch what they're doing."
AOL and Time Warner were in an ideal position to deliver a solution for these people. I don't know why they didn't -- it looks like a case of corporate infighting and stupid internal turf wars, but that's pure speculation on my part.
Re:Time Warner has mismanaged AOL (Score:1, Interesting)
Coincidentally, their tech-savvy kids are probably more familiar with using Windows XP anyway, thus making it harder for them to bypass those parental controls.
Re:Time Warner has mismanaged AOL (Score:2)
They did that. Its pretty effective in Windows (don't know about the mac). It may have bad marketing, but still they did do it.
PCs in the living room helps (Score:1)
The best people can do is say, "Put the computer in the family room, so you can watch what they're doing."
That's pretty effective. I remember growing up that the telephone and television were both in high traffic areas. And I can't imagine anything other than only allowing visits to white-listed sites being more effective than regular glances over their shoulder.
Re:Time Warner has mismanaged AOL (Score:2)
It's all about internet ad revenue (Score:2)
Google provides search technology to AOL and gives AOL a cut of the advertising revenue generated by those searches. AOL earned $300 million from Google search ad revenue last year.
I posted this as a reply to another comment, but this battl
Re:It's all about internet ad revenue (Score:2)
http://www.thenewstribune.com/business/story/53160 87p-4817811c.html [thenewstribune.com]
http://news.com.com/Goog [com.com]
Re:It's all about internet ad revenue (Score:2)
Google buying AOL? (Score:2)
This is news... (Score:2)
AIM Fight? (Score:2)
Re:AIM Fight? (Score:1)
Interesting times ahead... (Score:3, Interesting)
Google could make AOL not suck (Score:2)
Re:Google could make AOL not suck (Score:2)
I have my suspicions as to what the results would be but haven't run the test yet.
Resources aren't the issue (Score:1)
Microsoft's resources dwarf them for the moment.
I can't imagine that AOL is worth more than the available resources of either company.
Google on AOL: Interested in Users, not Content! (Score:2, Interesting)
New catch phrase (Score:1)
Smacks in the face of the settlement (Score:2)
Judge: "So, you have 99% of the desktop market which has given you the browser market due to bundling."
MS: "Yes."
Judge: "So, you want to buy AOL so you can then bundle MSN Search capabilities into AOL in effect forcing them to accept MSN Search much like they do with IE now?"
MS: "Uh...yes."
Judge: "Okay, why don't you just offer a search engine and page like Google does now? And just compete straight up?"
MS: "Heheheh....hehehehhe..hehehe....
Re:Smacks in the face of the settlement (Score:2)
Bundling had to do with giving their software away free with their operating system, and on top of that, the violation was they didn't give people a choice to use a different product. Search doesn't work that way. People have a choice... e.g. don't use AOL or MSN. MS is using their money to
Re:Smacks in the face of the settlement (Score:2)
Either way Google loses... (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Google holds on to AOL, but overpays and/or issues stock to pay. This causes the stock price to go down because of dilution.
2) Microsoft buys AOL and denies Google the eyeballs. This also causes Google's stock price to go down.
My read on the situation is that closer ties between MSFT and Time-Warner can only benefit both of them - it creates a diversified media/technology conglomerate which not only has the content but the technology to deliver it with all sorts of DRM. A nightmare for the Slashdot crowd, but a dream come true for RIAA-types.
Google's only advantage here is that they're the incumbent player - it's significant, and there are obstacles in front of Microsoft. However it's hard for AOL to turn away from the green stuff.
Re:Either way Google loses... (Score:2)
By the way if google looses this fight you know they are going to go the justice dept and tie up the deal for years right?
Mozilla impact (Score:2, Interesting)
AOLD (Score:2)
Re:AOLD (Score:2)
AOL bought Broadcast.com for Internet stock . . .
Umm. AOL didn't buy Brodcast.com for any price, stock, cash, or otherwise. Yahoo bought them.
Re:AOLD (Score:2)
The brutal reality is MS will win... some facts. (Score:5, Interesting)
So what is at stake and why is AOL so important? Well take a look at these stats (as reported by the NY Times the nation's paper of record).
September rankings
1. Yahoo: 123 million users
2. Time Warner (AOL and related sites): 119 million
3. MSN and other Microsoft sites: 114 million
4. Google: 87.6 million
Combine AOL and MSN and they almost double yahoo and are almost 3 times Google! Advertisers will KILL to get their ads in front at that number of possible people. As far as Google's superior tools... they aren't THAT much better. 87.6million vs 233million is a big difference and lets face it MS has very good developers, lots of resources, and will catch up. They always do.
Now where is the growth? Well, the real crown jewel is getting access to Time Warner's arsenal of media content. Most people expected the next big wave to be media, and AOL is the gateway to one of the biggest deposits on the planet.
The winner of this battle wins more then just bragging rights. If MS beats out Google, it's going to be a HUGE hit for them financially. It's more then just loosing their 12% of revenue each year. It will also mean they will loose their premier advertising title. People will start throwing money at advertising with MSN strictly for the numbers, and that will result in more losses for both yahoo and Google.
This is much more then a warning shot across Google's bow. I see this as a precise incision, not at Google's hear, more like cutting off one of Google's legs. They can live without it, but in a race you do best with both legs.
Its not 1998 (Score:3, Insightful)
The logic that you can buy percentages
Re:The brutal reality is MS will win... some facts (Score:2)
As long as google is better able to target and get a better click through they have nothing to worry about.
I am rooting for Google to buy (Score:1)
Nobody wants AOL for their dialup business (Score:3, Interesting)
- AOL's immense demographic information and purchase history etc on a large segment of the population. This is much much more valuable to MSFT and GOOG because they don't currently have much of this.
- AOL's content network. AOL has a large content network that garner substantial number of impressions every day. You might not like their content, but a great number of people do. This is valuable to MSFT, GOOG, and YHOO.
Why is all this suddenly so important? Check what has been driving Internet revenues over the last 3 years (especially Google): advertising. Search engine advertising is beginning to top out in the US, there is only so much more growth to be had there before it flattens out. The next surge must come from advertising on content networks (Adsense, Yahoo Publishing Network etc). Suddenly AOL looks like a big prize: lots of impressions, captive audience and tons of fine-grained consumer data.
Yahoo was never a serious contender in this race, they don't have the kind of valuations that AOL would want, and they have a vast repository of consumer information already themselves so the only value to buying AOL would be to ensure that Google and Microsoft don't get their hands on it.
finally a reason that makes sense... (Score:2)
An anti-competition (Score:2)
Whoever wins loses. (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
You've all got it wrong! (Score:1)