Slashdot Mirror
AOL Jumps Into the Ring with Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google
mikkl666 writes "Even just since this morning, there's much to report in the ongoing fight between Microsoft and Yahoo!. After Yahoo! announced yesterday that they are testing Google AdSense, Microsoft reacted with a comment pointing out that 'any definitive agreement between Yahoo! and Google would consolidate over 90% of the search advertising market in Google's hands.' Ironically, they complain that 'this would make the market far less competitive.' Both companies try to team up with strong partners, as well. Yahoo! and AOL are now closing in on a deal to combine their Internet operations. And of course, this morning's news was that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is apparently in talks for a joint bid for Yahoo!"
steampunk web design
Can you say Yea! Defense!
C'mon. Yahoo is pluckings now. Default to Google, if no Microsoft buy.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
At least with AOL+Yahoo you know that the email servers won't be swapped out just to use MS SW. And none of the Yahoo supported OSS software will be turf'd (ie. that Exchange server alternative)
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
It's like the bouncing yappy dog that won't go away. :)
Execute? [Y/N] _
News Corp reaches out and tags Microsoft. Microsoft picks up a chair (signature move) and BAM smacks YAHOO across the back!
Yahoo stumbles over and tags AOL, who does a Flying forearm smash to the face...
Starting to feel like we need a claymation Deathmatch for this.
Fsck both of those words. I would say that the word is "Karmically".
My blog
Combining their efforts, aye? Can't get much crappier than that...
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Surprisingly, the OP referred to irony in a correct fashion. The fact that this is called into question just shows how far popular culture has become out of touch with grammar.
If News Corp outbids Microsoft for Yahoo!, will I still be able to search for information about Democrats using their site, or will it be a fair and balanced search engine?
AOL+Yahoo doesn't strike me as being able to produce better services than Yahoo alone could. Or MS+Yahoo. Or any other combination.
The bigger a company is, the more cultural inertia it has, the less willing it is to try something new. Would strapping AOL's "never change anything" mentality to any company make it better? At least Microsoft has occasionally given one of its subdivisions such free-reign that it's been able to innovate (Microsoft mice, xbox360's networking features). Still, MS is mostly extra baggage.
Yahoo by itself is already producing tons of different services, on the off-chance that a handful will be successful. Combining with someone larger will certainly slow that down. Would that slowdown be offset by making some more likely to be successful? I doubt it.
Brando, its what your browser craves. (Now with electrolites)
I am that much more enlightened and proportionally disillusioned
How much I sometimes might cringe at the sight of teens typing, on their defence I have to say that language is dynamic. If it's not, it's dead.
The meaning of most words has always changed over time. Learn to live with it, or grow to be a grumpy old man.
Manuals are your last resort only
Well, at this rate I'd like to throw my hat in too, and announce that I'd like to buy Yahoo! as well.
Anyone else?
I'd also like to be taken into consideration as the father of Anna Nicole's baby.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
This news image over on engadget has got to be one of the creepiest things I've seen in a while.
An entire sentence from the Slashdot story, on 2008-04-10 at 12:53 PDT:
Microsoft.
The parent comment: "The great slashdot editors apparently thought that Microsoft deserved an entire sentence all to itself."
LOL. It amazes me how little Slashdot editors have learned over the years. Let that be a lesson to anyone who spends time playing video games. You need all your time learning how the world works. There is no time to spend being an angry button-presser.
Or, theory 2, maybe stories about Microsoft only need one proper noun. Articles, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs are understood. No need to repeat words like "evil", "Ballmer", "chair", "monopoly", "Chief of Grief", or "Software's Dr. Death".
That's an idea for a story submission. The entire Slashdot story could be just one word, "Microsoft". I'm sure there would be hundreds of comments. I know I'd post my usual comment: "The problem with Vista is that buyers are becoming technically knowledgeable enough that they don't want to be beta testers of a very unfinished product that requires them to buy more powerful hardware. Remember that Windows XP Service Pack 2 was released only 3 years ago. Before that was 3 years during which every Windows XP customer was a beta tester of a very unfinished product that didn't even handle USB very well."
mikkl666, are you saying that you submitted good English, but the Slashdot editors ruined your story?
I would welcome an AOL-Yahoo merger, way over an MS-Yahoo destructo-fest.
expandfairuse.org
Microsoft is afraid of moving apps off the desktop. In a world where computers boot a simple OS, then open a web browser to get all work (email, documents, spreadsheets, everything else) done scares the hell out of microsoft. That is not the business model that microsoft has been using. I don't think microsoft could switch to that kind of business model any time soon.
The little boys in Redmond (Ballmer no exception regardless of his girth) have always been a bit delusional. If 90% of a market is held by one company in one market and that is anti-competitive then 90% of a market held by one company in the OS market is obviously anti-competitive.
The Redmond boys need to stick to copying software ideas and stay out of the big boy markets where they obviously are limited in mental maturity.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Proper use of the term irony is more a function of vocabulary and syntax than it is grammar. Grammar is merely structure whereas vocabulary and syntax cover meaning.
True, bad grammar can mangle meaning though.
Pooty tweet
I don't take issue with word meaning and grammar changing -- it happens all the time. I take issue with the word meaning NOT changing, but words being used in a cliche that is then misused, to the point where the word itself no longer has any actual meaning in the sentence, other than that someone thought it sounded good.
Another example is "a tough row to hoe" (talking about potato farming) turning into "a tough road to hoe" (which makes no sense). The word "road" has not changed meaning, neither has the word "row" -- but people misuse it in a way that makes the word use and the sentence use cease to have any meaningful contribution to the conversation other than to make the speaker/writer sound more knowledgeable to those who don't know what they are actually trying to say.
For an example of a word that has undergone a myriad of transformations over the years, look at the word "nice". For a simpler example in recent history, there's "gay". For a different kind of transformation where the activity referenced has stayed the same but the connotations have changed, look at the word "jazz".
Yahoo + AOL = Good
Yahoo + AOL + Microsoft = Bad
Yahoo + AOL + News Corp = Ugly
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I'm inclined to agree with techdirt's analysis... this is an indication that the big players are taking their eyes off the ball. The more mergers/reshuffling/synergistic-focus-shifting that goes on among these companies, the more opportunity there is for an small, innovative and efficient company to step into the void.
Ok lets look at the numbers on this.
Looking at Time Warner's annual report you can see that from FY05 to FY07, AOL revenues are down 36%. Conversely, operating income excluding one-time items is up 21%.
This implies that the AOL division has remained profitable primarily by cost cutting, not by natural growth in its business. For example, it took them $7.52 to generate $1 of operating income in 2005. That ratio (revenue/operating income) is now down to $3.89.
Yahoo's business, on the other hand, is the mirror image of AOL's. Revenues from 2005-2007 are up 32.55%, while operating income is down 66.61%. This is mainly due to operating costs increasing 67% in the same period.
So essentially, you have a business, AOL, who sucks at generating revenue but is good at cutting costs, being bought out by a business, Yahoo, that is good at generating revenues (we'll see whether that holds in a recessionary environment), but horrible at keeping costs under control. If the two managements can learn from each other, this combination might actually work out for shareholders.
Of course, for Yahoo employees, it means pack your desks up because heads are rolling if YahAOL is formed.
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
Yup, Yahoo! is now officially dead and the buzzards are just fighting to see who gets to rip off the more choice hunks of meat from the bones.
Wow, $4 billions in profits is dead?
FalconShould there be a Law?
In the mean time, AltaVista is standing quietly in the corner nursing its drink, trying to muster up the courage to ask ChaCha for a dance. Awwwww :(
Do a search on Alta Vista some time, the results have Yahoo! stamped all over them. Whether that's because the results come from Yahoo! or Yahoo! provides any ads or something else I don't know.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Maybe that's really "a tough road to ho", meaning, it's a difficult street for prostitutes to earn a living on?
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Unsigned 32-bit wrap-around.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump