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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!!!!
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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.
Nah, you're only 5% cooler than yesterday.
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?
But doesn't AOL own the rights to the Netscape browser (repackaged Firefox)? If so, what does this do to the rumor about Opera?
Instead of "Do no evil" it will be "Partner up with evil"?
You spelled this word correctly on Slashdot, you insensitive clod!
A man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what's an erection for?
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.
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...
Intangible assets such as subscriber base don't really factor into the value of a company since they are impossible to measure. Just ask Reader's Digest.
No, I suspect Google are throwing around the cash to keep existing their revenue share from disappearing. AOL accounts for a very large slice of Google's annual revenues. Its less buying *more* market share than it is keeping the revenue steam from disappearing.
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...
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
Evil will always triumph because Good is dumb. -Dark Helmet
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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 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 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.