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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.
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) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
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I can't wait for Google + AIM = GAIM :)
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?
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.
Simple really. Google keeps AOL from Microsoft.
Google is used by AOL Search right now. Just the amount of traffic and ad revenue from that results in like $400 million per year in Google's coffers and is 10% of their traffic.
Without AOL, it deals a decent blow to Google, especially if it were Microsoft who takes it.
I'm sure this deal will result in a tighter integration between Google and AOL services. Perhaps AIM will be opened up for real to any client, especially GTalk. Perhaps Gmail (or at least its interface) will replace AOL Mail.
Who knows.
The main thing though is that Google is paying $1 billion, but will easily recoup that due to the $400+ million a year in revenue it gets from AOL to begin with. This deal is all about preventing Microsoft from expanding in the search area.
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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Actually, wouldn't it be "GAY O L" ?