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Google To Purchase Stake In AOL For $1 Billion
Lord Haha writes "It appears that Google may be on the verge of purchasing a 5% stake in AOL." From the article: "A tie-up with Google would make sense. Time Warner has been losing out online to rivals like Microsoft and Yahoo. For its part, Google may be interested in getting access to AOL's e-mail and instant messaging service. It would strengthen Google's hand against rivals Yahoo and Microsoft, who have well-established webmail and instant messaging services. Google is a relative newcomer to this area with Gmail and Googletalk." More commentary on News.com. Big change from just a few days ago.
GoooooooooAOL!!!!
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
As an AOL member, I must be pretty cool now.
Try Google for 30 days with unlimited searches!
(your firstborn will be named AOL234 if you do not cancel)
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
I Love AOL, and now that they are partnered with Google, then Google will be just as powerful as AOL!
I can't wait for Google + AIM = GAIM :)
People will say it's a good idea so Google can hold onto AOL's subscriber base, but realistically if AOL aligned with microsoft, people would just leave AOL's sinking ship even faster than they already are.
Bottom line: Google can find a better way to spend that money.
... in stock and convertible bonds.
Geez, these daily "Google to purchase XYZ" stories are getting long in the tooth...
Couldn't Google simply start it's own ISP and grow it to at least 5% the size of AOL? That would give it all the leverage (or more because they can't be outvoted by the other 95%) with none of the nasty associations.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Is this how they get around their "Don't be evil" (phoney) mantra? By buying and outsourcing all the evil to a company that's very good at being evil?
Makes no sense to me. Why buy 5% of a sinking dial-up provider?
Yahoo pulls ahead in second quarter of 2005, possibly because of "buy" strategy versus Google's "build" strategy. So is the purchase of AOL Google's "buy" response?
? entry=google_versus_yahoo
http://www.realmeme.com:8080/roller/page/realmeme
But doesn't AOL own the rights to the Netscape browser (repackaged Firefox)? If so, what does this do to the rumor about Opera?
Would this put iChat, AIM and GoogleTalk all on the same network? (AOL allows Apple's .mac members to use their .mac name to get onto the AIM network)
Why is Google doing this? AOL, to be frank, sucks. Nobody switches to AOL, jsut away from it. Yes, they still have a monopoly on IM in the US, but that's about it.
A wise man once said, "wtf h4x."
Instead of "Do no evil" it will be "Partner up with evil"?
Maybe Microsoft led them to this. Monkey Boy strikes again, to the tune of one Billion Google dollars? Nice.
Mark this as the first day Google started to become Big Corporate Dumb.
It has begun.
hmmmmm..... Can Google/AOL both distribute ten bajillion CDs ~and~ do no evil? ;)
Agile Artisans
You spelled this word correctly on Slashdot, you insensitive clod!
A man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what's an erection for?
Google may have to revamp their search engine in order to accept terminology used by its new users...
L33t search
"did you mean leet ?"
Users of the world: We're here to help you, but help us help you. (your IT dept)
Is AOL really worth the $20 billion this investment (assuming its true) would value them at? It would value them at about 1/4 the entire value of TWX. Seems kinda high to me. Then again, its not as if I'm an expert at asset valuation...
Wake me up when actual news occurs - complete with named sources or a press release, or something to make me think that this is more than just some writers trying to sound like they're insiders.
So finally they're completing the Googol... :P
"All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
if Bash.org is any indication, most people want to put a stake in AOL... users.
I don't get it. Why would Google to do this? Where is the percentage?
I really don't believe that they're after AOL's email service, as GMail is already the class of the field in webmail and a strong competitor for Yahoo and Hotmail. As for AIM, I thought Google launched their own IM service a while ago and it is likely to grow as well as previous Google projects.
Is Google after customer data? An entry into the ISP field? I don't get it.
Ok, this could be a great thing for google. Granted, 5% is not a lot of stock by any means, but it is a start to gaining even a larger user base.
Think about people who use AOL. They don't tend to be people that use anything else. So, imagine a google branded browser, automatically using google search, being able to check you aol mail in gmail, and talking back and forth over the aim network. And, even above that, AOL still owns some broadband ISPs, so if Google were looking to get into the market, this is how they could do it. While AOL might be a sinking ship, Google is exactly the company that could bring them out of the slump. So, as I see it, a win-win situation for both companies...
It is difficult for us younger people/ geeks to understand why on earth you would want to drop a big one on a service which is only used by a load of incontinent coffin-dodgers who haven't got the mental energy of a goldfish.
However the grey dollar is important, and my guess is that they are doing this to buy market share. All the business books tell you that this is poor strategy, and it probably is. However most business books do not cover the situation of a desparate competitor who is cash rich, and you want to deny them the only way of building their market share.
It is not so much that they want this market, it is more that they want to deny it to MS.
Humorous signatures are over-rated.
1. Purchase Failing Company (AOL)
2. ???
3. Profit
As you can see, this is a totally blanant plan.
> Linux is for homosexuals.
Man, is your gaydar ever off. I use a Mac!
If Good Takes over evil, Does Evil become Good or is Good turned to Evil.
Has Google become 5% evil or has AOL become 5% good. Or Does good and evil cancel each other out, is Google now 5% neutral. Is Google now on its way to just is... not good or evil?
I guess we will have to wait and see if Google becomes Skynet...
AOL appears to be circling the drain, why not wait 3 or 4 months and get 20% for the same price?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
from a nytimes article on the subject: "Google, which prides itself on the purity of its search results, agreed to give favored placement to content from AOL throughout its site, something it has never done before."
i dont know if this means that google will be changing search results, but if it does, this is a pretty drastic philosophy change, and something that seems to bode extremely negatively for googles future
First AOL has lost nearly 6 MILLION customers since 2003, bringing their total subscriber base close to 20 million, down from about 26.5 million in late 2002. Their numbers will exponentially decrease as cable, DSL, VoIP and numerous other broadband technologies both mature and become more stablilized, therefore bringing in more customers. This is inevitable.Dial up is dead. As a side note, these 9.95 dial up NetZero conglomerates are riding the same wing, milking a dying technology to the very end, to get rich quick or get as much profit as they can before they will not be able to sustain a lucrative business with little or no customer base.
Secondly, why does google want to associate themselves with a company that is has been and is under class action lawsuits for unethical business practices, such as billing people even after they cancelled their subscriptions , double-billing schemes and recent news of their underhandedness at the expense and personal well-being of customers. If you think this is just nonsense go over to the gripe Logs and here to read what people are saying -- some pretty amazing and maybe surprising stories. I am sure there are sub-links to other stories from there.
Lastly, about AOL's so called "exclusive" content.. what is so exclusive about it? What information does google not have for free out on the web for users that AOL has? Is it worth 5%?? It just seems like AOL is buying old garbage waiting to be thrown out on trash day. The AOL for broadband scheme is a complete and utter joke. First off AOL doesnt offer broadband, they just offer their neat little toy interface to go along with your broadband connection.. and all that for $9.95...and for what?
Can someone shed some light?
Mr. Ballmer has google to thank for his new fitness program.
maybe they plan to integrate with aim. Perhaps they're planning on firing up all that unused fiber and making another broadband service company. Or perhaps they've just decided that "hey instead of burning this huge pile of cash, we'll buy some of AOL instead!" But this purchase probably has something to do with what will happen in the future, some crazy scheme google has cooked up. Instant messaging and dail up provider are about the only 2 things aol does well... so I guess flip a coin, and then don't look at it. That way quantom mechanics will be in your favor ;)
Evil will always triumph because Good is dumb. -Dark Helmet
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Customer data - bingo.
- AOL knows every IP address it ever leased you.
- Google knows the IP address of every search ever done on Google.
Scared yet?
GAOL, I'm all for it.
I definitely think that this is specifically targeted towards AIM and, to a lesser degree, AOL Mail. But it begs the question - Since AOL Mail NOT a free service, what will become of GMail?
But again, if google is trying to push their GTalk client, this is the way to do it.
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
Aolbatross! Dead Aolbatross for sale!
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Really? That'd better be one sweet piece of software to justify it. I'd love to see the secret google roadmap. You know, the one with all there crazy plans. Heck I'd love to see everything they thought of that they threw in the dumpster as being TOO crazy. But I've never heard of a company throwing a billion away for a toolbar. Something is a brewing in google-land.
Lets see how long it will now take google to become like AOL... SHITTY
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
You are absolutely corect that it costs less for Google to buy into AOL than to see its AOL revenue disappear. What no one seems to be saying yet is that Google can use its part ownership to increase its AOL revenues. Can you imagine the kind of financial windfall to Google if they managed to push Adsense into AOL email or even AIM? That's a LOT of potential clicks from a large and captive audience.
While thinking philosophically, we see problems in places where there are none. -Wittgenstein
"Google, which prides itself on the purity of its search results, agreed to give favored placement to content from AOL throughout its site, something it has never done before."
The beginning of the end, if true.
I wonder about the legality of these kinds of things. I'm just a stupid freshmen, but I seem to remember the Clayton Act making stock acquisition of competing companies illegal if it 'substantially lessens competition or tends to create a monopoly.' I suppose the magical subjective keywords here are "substantially" and "create."
Not so fast...
The sentence from the NYT is carefully constructed to be ambiguous. I would be shocked if Google were actually agreeing to bias its search results to favor AOL. However, favoring AOL content "throughout its [Google's] site" might just mean giving AOL content preferential treatment in sponsored links, as some other coverage has indicated, and perhaps in other places outside the search results themselves.
Of course, sponsored links can be considered a kind of search result, but since they're sponsored anyway, it's just a question of whether the buyers get what they think they paid for, and not a question of misrepresenting Internet content.
http://www.red-bean.com/kfogel
I think something to also consider is AOL spent years buying up random small technologies and companies... but then did nothing with them. A couple examples from the top of my head are Winamp and Netscape. Include this with the obvious items that have already been listed and who knows what could happen. I don't know what Google may or may not be after but there could be potential there. More than likely this is just a move to keep AOL from MS for the time being. After all it is only a 5% purchase not a merger. It will be interesting to see what happens.
If Google = Good and AOL = Evil, then AOL is now 5% good and Google is now 2% evil.
Entropy dictates that over time, the goodness and evilness of both will continue towards each other until they reach stability.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Microsoft: Yeeeea.. Hmmmm, maaaaybe I think... yea, I'll buy a stake in AOL.
Google: Me too!
Yahoo: Me too!
Yahoo: Ok I'm just checking it out really, not sure I'm interested that much.
Google: Well, uhmm..
Microsoft: Ok, I'm buying.
Google: Me too!
Yahoo: Me too!
Actually, if AOL becomes 5% good, then Google only becomes 2%*95% evil, and in turn, AOL only becomes 5%*2%*95% good, and so on.
God dammit, I think this is starting to turn into a calculus problem.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Google already has 3 articles of news on the front page of slashdot, they had a few yesterday as well. How much bigger can google grow?
If you add a teaspoon of fine wine to a barrel of shit, you still have a barrel shit. On the other hand, if you add a teaspoon of shit to a barrel of fine wine you now have a barrel of shit.
Could this deal be more about access to Time Warner's Media Libraries than about AOL?
Jobs is the rapidly emerging, dominant player in the video delivery market.
Perhaps this deal is about enhancing Google Video.
Couple this with the Paypal like service Google has been rumored to be developing and suddenly Google is a player in the on-demand video market.
Surely this can only be a GOOD thing. AOL can't get any worse so anything Google does will be beneficial.
What does this mean for the AOL browser?
Up to this point it has been using the IE HTML engine, does this mean AOL might switch over to gecko?
Surely Google may have some persuasion powers in what html engine AOL uses in the future.
Reread what you posted, only replace the string "Google" with "Microsoft", and see how you feel about it then.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
First Opera, now AOL..
Pretty soon there'll be a "Google in Talks Over Microsoft Merger" headline.
Headline: New internet search engine startup gives unbiased results, earns billions; movie at 11.
Someone will follow google's path and become "the next big thing" the same way google did. It's an easy formula:
><));>
Yahoo! decides they want to be cool and innovative again, so they buy in fresh talent, like del.icio.us. Google are already cool and innovative, so they buy in some stifling management to crush any excessive innovation.
Microsoft was trying to buy a stake in AOL so that they could get AOL to use sponsored links from MSN instead of Google. AOL users generated about 12%, or $382 million, of Google's $3.2 billion gross revenue in 2004. If Microsoft had been successful, not only would it have greatly added to MSN's revenue, but it would have hurt Google for quite a few years.
Oh No! Google is contaminated! Help! Help!
I don't mind Google looking for profit, but they MUST make sure that they never lower their standards.
(This will likely happen anyway, but hopefully we will have prepared with a Google repacement.)
You've been hoodwinked by AOL management. The way that AOL works internally will clash to a large degree with how Google does things. AOL people suffer to a large degree from the Not Invented Here syndrome, and get caught up in endless internal fiefdom disputes. The only saving grace here is that you didn't go for 10%. (used to work @ AOL, very glad to be out - most AOL'ers are clueless)
Where does W fit into this worldview?
I guess their WLAN plans are not giving them enough users to spy on fast enough.
I think good (intentions) but dumb is a pretty accurate/common descriptor.
They're buying Opera too, why not? As well as iCab and Internet Explorer, and they've even put up a bid for Amaya. And they're starting Google Music, funding a lab with Sun and Microsoft, and scanning every word that was ever printed. The USGS will soon be a subsidiary of Google Maps. Google will soon buy Microsoft, Intel, Apple, and the Louvre. Google won't actually buy the Library of Congress; rather, it will be given to Google in an act passed unanimously by the House and Senate.
Because that sounds pretty damned high to me. I wouldn't have put it over $10 billion, but then again, I'm no economist.
I have like this image in my head now of this "queer eye for a straight guy episode" where they start replacing they take on this computer geek and they start replacing his pcs from x86 to mac and that blonde guy going "there you go, now you can do your online dating in style!"
Nope, it means that Google (baited by Microsoft) got taken to the cleaners.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
To be fiar, there are people protesting that some fine wines in recent years have lost their flavor because they moved to better casks that don't admit the rodents that commonly left droppings and died in their previous casks. It changed the flavor. So, maybe fines need a little shit?
WHAT!
That's all.
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
I thought I read (on here) that Google was buying up dark fiber... isn't that counter intuitive to buying an AOL share?
Actually it's more like because Good plays by the rules and Evil doesn't.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
AOL being part of Time Warner has access to multi media like nobody else. To think for 1 second that AOL is still not one of the biggest and badest compaines around today is just plain ignorant. Dial up may be dead, but AOL has proved to be much more that just a dial up company. They didnt die like all the dial ups. They found a way to keep 20 million people to pay them 22 bucks a month. They did it with methods that may make us scrath our heads, but it worked. And if google doest pay up to the man (aol) now, it will suffer badly when Microsoft walks in. And if you dont like the lilttle "toy" that AOL offers, chances are you have no idea what it is these days. It's not AOL 2.0 anymore. You really think a company like time warner is dumb. Please, you dont make mistakes when you own the likes of CNN, HBO, Warner brothers, Time Publishing, roadrunner, court TV, New Yorks TV 1,The WB, Hanna-barbera cartoons,castle rock entertainment,Sports Illustrated,people,DC comics,TNT and cartoon network !!!!!!!! I kinda forgot like 45 other sub compaines (new line cinema the atlanta braves, amazon.com) But by now you have to get he point. This isnt AOL for your old windows 95 box. This is AOL that has all that at its disposal. Google is very lucky.
If M$ was getting AOL? I remember you guys trashing them when this story first came out months ago. But its okay for google because you like them?
Sell that $430 Google stock, take your profits... ...while you can.
I'm astounded by the crap I'm reading here in the comments. The benefits for Google are enormous and obvious, and the price is more than fair. Everyone is so burnt on their perception of the AOL client with it's 'me too' members they don't see what it really is.
1) AOL makes $1 billion in *profit* every year. Makes a $20 billion valuation easy to grasp. Yes, 2/3 of that is from dial up users that's eroding. But the advertising portion is growing dramatically every year (per eyeball internet ads are still very cheap compared to print, that's going to change).
2) AOL has millions and millions of users. Not just members per se, but users of it's services via aim.com, aol.com, netscape.com, VOIP, AOLRadio + WinAmp, etc. It wants to provide features to all of these with web services (mail, IM, address books, etc) instead of it's old fashioned heavy client (and make money off of it with ads). Google is building these types of features, also to make money with ads, but has almost no member base. Excellent match there, merging the backends of those memberships to give AOL users (again, not just those paying for dial-up) access to Google's features.
3) AOL provides Google with a large amount of it's cash. Letting Microsoft have a partnership would be a hard blow to Google's bottom line and permanently establish Microsoft as a search titan (just like how a partnership with AOL made MS the browser champion).
4) AOL internally is an Open Source heavy shop (no shit). If they have to choose between Google and Microsoft, they can work with Google much more easily and have the expertise to do so. The only thing Microsoft could do is take the name (not much value there, really) and kill the company to spite Google. Retrofitting would be like rebuilding the whole thing from scratch.
The issue here is that AOL is owned by a corporate parent that hates them and won't AOL do what they need to move past 1999. They won't give them access to their cable systems, they compete directly against them in VOIP, won't let them trade in media content, and openly dis them in their media outlets. The true crime is that TW didn't just sell AOL to Google directly. Google is going to regret every percentage point that TW still holds. *That's* the true danger of this deal... what TW might make Google do to use AOL.
Take a look at Steve Case's opinion on all of this in this Washington Post article.
So, okay, AOL is 'shit'. AOL users are 'stupid'. The company is 'evil'. Whatever. It's still the most powerful single consumer internet access company and it's a valuable asset... especially if it goes to an organization (like Google) that can move it's members to purely ad-supported features.
I tried doing what you suggested (even though it wasn't my post) and here is my reaction:
"Microsoft is giving AOL's ads preferential treatment over other ads it serves? Whoop-de-freeking-do! I ignore ads anyway."
So, I don't think I see your point.
Please put an OpenOffice installer on all of those free AOL CDs! I'll collect them and give them to everyone I know if they do...
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