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Google Acquires 5% of AOL
Heembo writes "CNN is reporting that Google just acquired a 5% stake in AOL for $1 Billion, shutting Microsoft out of the deal." Under this new agreement, among many other things, Google Talk will now interface with AOL's instant messenger according to the announcement on Google's site. From the announcement: "Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said: 'AOL is one of Google's longest-standing partners, and we are thrilled to strengthen and expand our relationship. Today's agreement leverages technologies from both companies to connect Google users worldwide to a wealth of new content.'"
AOL has a reputation of being a bad ISP, and also creating bad software for it's users. Will this move help AOL, or hurt Google?
This could get interesting. (fp?)
google.slashdot
It's about time there was some co-operation between IM networks. I wonder if this also means that AIM will be open to other Jabber-based networks to connect to easily - perhaps they are implementing a Jabber server based interface to the AIM network?
This reminds me of the transition a couple of decades ago from multiple distinct email networks (Compuserve, AOL, BITNET, etc) to the one unified email system we have now. Hopefully in a few years it won't matter what IM network we are on to be able to communicate. And ideally, one's email address and IM address would be identical.
Google's "Do No Evil" motto found to be obsolete.
this means more stupid people will be using google. IN ALL CAPS!!!!!
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
Both entities are going to have to meet in the middle, as far as on screen visuals. Which can only be bad for the Google we all know and love.
Not a dupe, it comnfirms the speculation in http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/16/204231 &tid=217&tid=120
The 'Net is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it. - William Gibson
With the arrival of graphical ads and corporate aquisitions it seems that post-IPO Google is abandoning a few of it's old principles in the pursuit of the almighty buck. How long before "Don't be Evil" is gone too? I could kinda live with Google's pseudomonopoly on searching back when their character was spotless, but this may well be the first lurch down a slippery slope. It may just be paranoia, but I think the days of trusting Larry and Sergey are coming to an end.
Because I know Slashdot would never post a dupe.
at slashdot, google is good and aol is bad. will the servers melt?
1. Buy 5% of AOL and have GTalk interoperate with AIM
2. ???
3. Profit!
Google is supposed to be smart, after all.
Pigs around the world grow wings, and start lifting off.
Temperature in hell drops below 32 F.
Mad Software: Rantings on Developing So
I wonder if this means they will be going off standard jabber, using the AIM protocal, or will google setup a gateway for Jabber on google servers? Google has also announced full third party client support(gaim trillian etc), does this mean it will be extended to AIM? This could help the IM world get a little more organized.
Also, Google and all their tools and toys seem to be something that is more smart people (lets say the top 50% of technology users) while AOL tended to be something for the dumber folks (lets call them the bottom 50%).
Actually, now that I think about it in that context, makes perfect sense...
Reality has a liberal bias
Google + AOL = GAOL?
Optimist: The thumb drive is half empty! Pessimist: The thumb drive is half full...
If Google Talk gets connected with the AIM network, and Google eventually allows Jabber server-to-server (big if, I know), I might possibly be able to talk to my friends on AIM without having to use Oscar...
1. Google buys dark fiber
2. Google builds instant datacenters in shipping containers
3. Google buys stake in dying dialup ISP with millions of users
4. ??? (Do I really need to spell it out?)
5. Profit. A whole lot of it.
A fat man is throwing chairs and popping veins.
AOL now 5% less evil!!!
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
It's as if a million geeks cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
I swear, if I get ONE damned Google CD in the mail, EVER - I'll go to a LIBRARY before I look something up on Google again.
I have been giving AOL a lot of thought lately. And I really think there is something to the 'Value-Add' market for broad band. I think there is a real market for a company to come along and offer services that augment the highspeed "experience". If AOL does it right, they could still be a viable business once the dialup world has coughed it's last spasms.
"He was a wise man who invented beer." - Plato
"Carry me across," begged the scorpion, "and I promise not to sting you."
The dog was wise and slow to reply. "I don't think so," he growled. "I've never met a trustworthy scorpion."
"Today you have," hissed the scorpion with as much of a smile as he could manage. "I'm not evil, like other creatures of my kind. Besides, if I stung you, I'd drown. Carry me across and I promise all will be well."
The dog relented, taking the scorpion on his back. He paddled out into the current. Halfway across, the scorpion stung him behind the neck.
"Now we will both surely die!" the dog moaned as the venom began to take hold. "Why have you done this?"
"Because I am a scorpion, of course."
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
The AIM of this deal is clearly to take over the instant messaging market, aka, AIM. With Google's ability to throw together amazing software (look at Gmail), I see a skype-esque but better client that supports itself via ads by scanning your conversations (maybe - if they push it that far - backlash might be too big). Personally, I would not have a problem with that, but I say no to cyber sex.
Google had to sacrifice quite a lot to snag this deal but if you take over instant messaging, you can take over voip, hence, you can take over telecommunications when cell "phones" can simply operate via wi-fi. I say, good move Google - I love you baby.
check out my music biatches. www.seanduffymusic.com
Major Time Warner shareholder Carl Icahn is calling this a "disastrous" decision.
You nailed it on the head. Google is an advertizing company. Plain and simple. Everything they do has a purpous: to get more Advertizing $$$. They don't do cool projects just because they are cool and because they help people. They do them because it brings in more advertizing dollars.
If they dominate the Internet that essentially trumps anything MS Windows can do. Microsoft has the Windows desktop. Google wants to be the Internet's home page. Which is more powerful? Which is more evil?
I'm a bit worried because if the Internet is taken over by an advertizing company you can kiss your privacy out the door! They'll collect every bit of info about you and your habits and connect the dots like not even the NSA could do.
It is just a matter of time before the advertisers that use Google say "enough." They are having channel conflict now at every move they make. This infusion puts them in serious jeopardy of losing major advertising dollars by directly and indirectly competing with their sponsors. They are no longer agnostic to service providers with this move: 1) ISP 2) VoIP 3) Cable TV 4) Communications Carrier Networks
I would be willing to wager that this has serious implications to their bottom line.
The air in here is getting pretty brown, and with that, we will see a new google come in and take some market share. There was a reason we all started using google after the likes of infoseek and other good search engines back in the day went south due to poor management vision, index spamming and advertising revenue crater. They are not learning from the mistakes of their predecessors. My recommendation to Larry and Sergey: Sell some stock now.
When a good company buys a bad company, the result is usually mediocrity. It's can be much harder to fix a crap company than to start fresh and build it right.
However, that isn't what's happening here. Google is only buying 5% AOL, and they already have a business relationship. Google crunched the numbers and determined that one Billion dollars was the right price to pay for renewing their lucrative contracts with AOL, establishing some new contracts, and disrupting Microsoft's plans.
My friend once told me about this time when he made out with a girl who he later found out was his cousin. He tried to explain the feeling to me. He said that his enjoyment made the post-revelation remorse much worse. But I didn't understand.
Jon -- if you're out there -- I get it now.
Before MS announced its interest in AOL, Google was nowhere near interested in an AOL deal (or so it seemed).
Now, just because MS wanted it, Google got it first.
Sometimes businesses are silly as they can possibly get. Remember the rush of everyone providing 1GB or better storage in their mail boxes in responce to Gmail? As if we all just die for a GB of storage we won't use cuz Google 'invented' it.
Now Google has fallen pray to the same game. I hope they play their cards well. But really I think instead of turning AOL into the Google ISP, they'll turn Google into the AOL Search Engine.
/. crowd: Get your head out of the sand...
/. population likes.
One of Google's issues right now is diversification of revenue streams. Most of their revenue comes from search and ads. They need to find more revenue from different areas, so what if they decided to provide the backend search and advertising infrastructure to AOL? AOL still provides the same interface and experience to it's users while Google still gets to have it's same interface that the general
What if google provided AOL with the ability to provide customized Ads to AOL users instead of AOL having to perform the work? It's called outsourcing, execute what you are good at and outsource the rest to people that are better at those tasks. If Google is good at displaying the correct ads, then it's in AOL's best interest to leverage this ability. AOL pays for this service and then Google has one more revenue stream.
With all the dark fiber purchases and rumblings I'm hearing about Google regarding streaming video, is it possible that the AOL buy is ultimately to get access to Time Warner's network?
-R
It takes a billion dollars to make two companies agree to open up their IM clients? ...
I wonder what it takes to get two to agree on anti-spam or anti-phish techniques...
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
It already does, and has for a while. Official instructions from Google are located here.
I've had several chats with my friend this way, with me using iChat and him using Google Talk.
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
Took me a little while to find it, but here's the press release from Google:e d.html
http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/twaol_expand
Would've been nice to have that linked in the summary, or at least in the CNN article. Or maybe it's just too late and I failed to see it.... O_o
Thanks for the insight. AOL's edge is their dominance on the instant message market and to have access to that is worth every penny when the alternative is swimming uphill offering what may be a better protocol but few will take to it because their chief concern is whether or not they'll be able to message their old friends. This market gives itself a natural monopoloy. So google's grabbing it and expanding it in all sorts of directions but the direction of which I am most curious is their stock: Is Google still a buy at $430?
The reason google is such a fantastic company is because time and time again they will find a niche in the industry where consumers are getting screwed (by greedy corporations, a lack of competition, or all the corporation agreeing to just settle on a crap implementation and not bother updating it), and then just knock everybody's socks off by creating a service so far superior it makes your head spin:
Google Search Engine - remember search engines before Google? Crammed and cluttered with ads, and nearly useless search results. Top result for a search for "cars" in Infoseek was someone in a message board talking about cars, but there were plenty of ads in every direction! Google was the first company to put the consumer first here and bring some intelligence to the information on the web.
Google Mail - Yahoo Mail was giving us 5mb, Hotmail I think 2MB?!? Insulting. Google comes along and drops a gig for everybody, plus a far superior interface compared to the decade-old interface of Yahoo and Hotmail. Of course Yahoo and Hotmail up their mailbox sizes in response (why werent they doing this before? it obviously wasnt a problem for them because Yahoo and MS were both content screwing the customer)
Google Talk - it looks like Google will finally be the one to unite the IM programs - this would never happen on its own, because the current players are perfectly fine with screwing their users because it helps their short-term gain. Can you imagine if phone companies were the same way, you couldn't call someone unless you subscribed to their service? The state of IMs is absolutely insulting to consumers right now and I'm rather ecstatic that Google has got their hands in it and is finally going to set things straight.
Google has got to be the first company I've ever heard of that counts on the intelligence of customers, looks past immediate gains they might get by pandering to their customers, and is very hugely rewarded for it (in terms of a skyrocketed stock price).
Don't get me wrong, I try to be cynical about corporations but Google is just making it too difficult!!
Hey, I thought this company was Google. Our happy interweb friend. What kind of speak is this?
Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said: 'AOL is one of Google's longest-standing partners, and we are thrilled to strengthen and expand our relationship. Today's agreement leverages technologies from both companies to connect Google users worldwide to a wealth of new content.
Leverages technologies? Wealth of new content? WTF?
Methinks Saruman's been looking into the palantir.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
"as part of an enhanced pact where Google will move beyond text-based advertising to allow AOL to sell graphical ads to Google's fast-growing ad network." There they just made the biggest mistake they could have made... Currently the only advertisement I don't block is from google because they are simple text adds they are also the only advertisements I've ever clicked out of interest on something they offered. If they are going to add annoying graphical banner adds they will go where the rest of the annoying graphical adds go.. exactly the block list. I really hope they reconsider this am sure they will lose A lot of revenue if they implant this.
They've successfully fool M$ with their do no evil marketing strategy. Ah yes, Typical Art of War: do not look threatening to your competitors, then when the time is right, wack'em unless your competitors fail from fear, over-protectiveness, and anxiety.
This deal is actually good for Google. AOL has such as wide reach--an internationally reach that only Microsoft can match. It's fits to mission #1 of Google.: to make information available to all users, you need a network/system that allows one to easily connect. That's compared to word-of-mouth strategies. And AOL fits nicely. Good business move I say.
Just as long as google supplies the results I want, at the price point (free to semi free) more power to them. So to the nay-sayers, really, only time will tell.
They should name the AOL version of Google, Aogoogle...
EMail addresses and IM addresses will never be identical without some layer of abstraction, because both expose some of the mechanics of how the messages are routed. In order for my Jabber ID to be the same as my email address, I must either manage my own domain -- which isn't an option for most people at this point -- or use the same provider for my email and my Jabber services. A user can choose to set things up this way for his own email address and Jabber ID, but no-one will ever be able to make the assumption that the two will always be identical.
Now what would be useful is some kind of service (decentralised, naturally) which gives every user a single identifier which can then be used to look up a user's Jabber ID or email address (or a webblog URL, telephone number...). Could even just use DNS for this with a few new RR types. People would probably want to do it in an authenticated manner though, so that they can control the distribution of their contact details; I guess things like LID can be used for this in theory. LID uses URLs as the universal identifier. Not much use until it gains critical mass, though.
From an outsider's point of view, it seems the reason for this deal is that AOL will keep Google search engine and Ad programs, the latter of which make up about 12% of Google's revenues. Google did this to protect their revenue and by extension, stock price. AOL gets a lot of money, and perhaps the cachet of a closer partnership with Google. As a side benefit, Google also gets to tie Google Talk in with AIM. It was an unfortunate necessity for Google, but that's business. Maybe they'll eventually persuade AOL to dump IE and go back to a Gecko-based browser...
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