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AOL, Yahoo Mulling Merger
Mike Zahalan writes with an update to last month's news that AOL and various private equity firms were exploring the possiblity of buying Yahoo. While talks between the companies have not officially gone much deeper, AOL has now hired financial advisers to analyze their options. Still, Kara Swisher writes at All Things Digital that the complexity of a deal between the two companies will be the biggest obstacle they have to overcome.
"Among the issues being grappled with: Onerous tax implications around a variety of deals; a need for complete cooperation from too many players; and the realization that a hookup of AOL and Yahoo might cause more problems than it solves. 'It looks great conceptually and everyone gets all hot and bothered,' said one prominent investor who did his own strategizing about Yahoo and AOL. 'But when you actually do the numbers, you hit a pretty big wall of impossible.'"
Because 0+0=1!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
if you burn the money instead, it keeps you warm. if you buy Yahoo, you gain nothing.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Will it then be "AOHoo"?
Oddly enough, it seems like Yahoo is mulling throwing away the same money Time Warner did. Never learn from others' mistakes, says us?
There's a spot in User Info for World of Warcraft account names? Really?
We'll call it Yaol (pronounced yowl) and call it a day because that's what the reaction will sound like.
What do they possibly have to gain? AOL is little more than an aged internet portal trading on legacy business from the not-too-bright.
(Which I guess is what Yahoo is...)
AOL is still around outside of AIM? And they have enough money to buy another company?
The world is how you make it
I remember when Yahoo! and AOL were the most important companies in their field.
AOL was so big that they bought media giant Time Warner.
Yahoo! was so big they were the homepage of over 90% of the internet-savvy population.
The internet changed AOL so much that it became unrecognizable as that company that used to clog mailboxes with 3.5" floppies and CDs with their software. Google surpassed Yahoo!'s hierarchical solution with its ranking-based solution.
Now both companies are in their final years, looking for a way to survive into the next decade. But realistically, without an actual software infrastructure that can be deployed across various device domains, the companies have no compelling story to sell customers.
They will continue to see their users migrate to Google and Apple. The best they can truly hope for is to become yet another app on Android and iOS (YAAOAAI!). They will never again be the gate keepers they once were.
They should have taken the deal when M$ offered it. Bing is already more popular than Yahoo lol. Then again, who cares what the retarded half of the internet uses.
Does anybody know how AOL still makes money? I thought they went out of relevance when the death of dial-up occurred.
Yahoo! at least has some brand name left, while AOL is just a farce at this point. If they were going to do a merger, it should be the other way around.
Interesting side note: For the first time in over a year, I saw a commercial on TV that actually said "AOL Keyword". I haven't heard that phrase in a long time, which just shows how far off the map AOL has fallen.
http://www.mulling.com/
But what's AOL and Yahoo?
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
'But when you actually do the numbers, you hit a pretty big wall of impossible.'"
Don't forget the wall of stupid. They'd have to deal with that one, too.
Wow Yahoo, if you merge with AOL after throwing Microsoft's bid back in their face a couple years ago, there will be some serious questions of why you declined such an eligible suitor in favor of a bum. Have you lost all your self esteem? Or are you one of those hopeless cases in love with the idea of changing and redeeming your partner? That never works!
Does anyone actually know what AOL does these days?
I know what Yahoo does; they host my fantasy football league (they might have other stuff too, I'm not sure; that's the only thing I've visited their site for in the last few years). Haven't seen anything from AOL since before their last ill-fated merger.
Their branding is pretty much worthless, I can't think of any products they sell or sites they own that I would want to visit (oh wait, wikipedia says they recently bought TechCrunch; sadly I don't read it), and I haven't seen any evidence that either of these are going to change - is it time for them to give up and sell off their assets? What do they have to offer to Yahoo (or anyone else, for that matter)?
This makes perfect sense, and stands to be one of the largest mergers in history, as the only currency that can accurately measure these companies' value is Flooz. The combined company should be worth nearly $250 Trillion when adjusted to 1999 dollars.
This sentence no verb.
Do we really need AIM, ICQ, Yahoo messenger, AOL mail, Netscape mail, Compuserve mail, Yahoo mail, AOL portal, Yahoo portal, and Yahoo search all under one roof? Hasn't AOL bought up and gutted enough companies just to keep the domain emails alive and nothing else?
How about making AOL and Yahoo messengers speak XMPP and making the server interoperate? How about working on making a decent search technology as a limited partnership to compete with Microsoft and Google? They don't need to merge, but they could be useful to one another without merging.
I recall an IT industry commentator comparing on the hp-Compaq merger as two garbage trucks colliding. I thought that was a reasonably accurate analogy.
But these two companies are kind of...worse. Maybe two honeywagons colliding? It'll take a while to get all that stink mopped-up!
Because 0+0=1!
For large values of 0?
Seriously, if I worked at either of these companies I'd be looking to exit soon. AOL/Yahoo sounds like any remaining value will be gone long before the merger closes.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
MeToo!
It's a sad thing to die alone, I'm glad they found each other.
SNL had it on their fake news that this merger "is like to seniors dating at a retirement home. No one really minds it cause they will both be gone soon"
I doubt they can buy a cup of coffee at this point.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Two massive chunks of suck on the internet are in danger of collapsing into a suck-singularity!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Looks like it could be one.
The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival.
Yeah, I was wondering about that one too. Any conception I can come up with doesn't look good, so they must have much better imaginations than I do.
I have to say, this seems a little underwhelming. Two companies that most people have all but forgotten, now forever together in their techno-obscurity.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Will be sad if that dies in the merger ( or just dies.. didn't realize yahoo was so bad off ) as that has become a defacto standard for a lot of people.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Maybe they can merge with Comcast, Time Warner, and the likes, and we all can have only one giant company that sucks, instead of many!
I leave it to the reader to decide which of the two is the drowning company and which is the brick
Oh good. Having just watched Human Centipede I now have two examples of crappy mergers that won't work.
If they do this, only one company will need to declare bankruptcy!
(If I knew were I first read this, I'd attribute. Needless to say, this quote was from another messageboard somewhere when this first came up a couple months ago.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Just wait for them to buy MySpace.
And I predict they with name themselves "graveyard.com"
Support SETI@home
Back in the minicomputer days we referred to this as "dinosaurs mating"
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Awesome! Now two brands that have become totally irrelevant to my online experience can curl up together and die! Good riddance! Don't let the door hit your collective ass on the way out!
Two dead bodies sewn together make a Frankenstein...
Yahoo! + AOL = Yahoo!
(This is because AOL = 0)
I'm shocked.
I'm using Yahoo mail now. If this goes through, it will give me that final push I need to move to Gmail or something.
Technoli
buying Yahoo.
Purchase it with a large fortune.
sorry
If banks spent less time throwing out stupid shortcuts to financial success based on brand names that front for little or nothing in useful product, but more time funding development of useful products, we'd have more useful products - and the banks would have more money.
But they don't know anything anymore except gaming the economy. Brand name mergers are the laziest way to do so. It's all sizzle and no steak, but they get their share of the money explosion from their banker peers on the sizzle.
--
make install -not war
So, is AOL's actual plan to just keep buying other companies who haven't been relevant since the late 90s, until such time as the massive collection of 90s nostalgia somehow changes, alchemically, into something worthwhile?
After about 5 hours on Slashdot, there are 8 comments. Yippee.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
Unless one is an anti-suck suck.
...are we scared yet?
Dear Yahoo,
Just stop breaking things and messing with the classic views. If you have to cut some staff, fine. Don't get bought. It'll just get worse and I'll have to change my e-mail. Don't show obtrusive ads. We're willing to look at ads if they're not obtrusive. Most of your current ads are blocked by my HOSTS file. Stop being a dick, and maybe I'll stop blocking your ads. See Google for a reference. Don't have anything to do with AOL. They're the kiss of death.
Sincerely, somebody who remembers when you were great, and is really loath to change, but will if you screw it up badly enough.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
This last weekend I noticed some modern, fuzzy looking AOL ads in bus stops along El Camino Real, in Mountain View and Palo Alto. These news might partially explain them, because otherwise, I haven't got the slightest idea of what they're selling with them.
To do list for Windows
Company 1 CEO: "Hey we're losing money. Let's find someone to buy us. No one wants to buy us. Let's merge with someone else"
Company 2 CEO: "Hey we're losing money. Let's find someone to buy us. No one wants to buy us. Let's merge with someone else"
CEO 1 to CEO 2:
Yes let's merge our two losing companies. At least then we can make sure that we secure Golden Parachutes for senior management,
make boatloads of money for our lawyers and fuck all the shareholders, fuck all the "little" employees, all in one step.
We've seen this show before.
Yahoo bumping to AOL is like two obese Lesbian Nuns grinding their genitals against eachother, and then as they walk down the hall they intentionally touch every God-damned doorknob just so everyone gets a yeast affection they would never know what to do with. Really, I refer to Yahoo and AOL as Nuns because they have none in value.
because it worked so well last time AOL merged with another company, they want to try it again.
Meh, either way, you'd still end up with advertisements in all your outgoing mail, no? And who cares about the interface if they support POP?
The original Skynet, that is. The one that mattered in 1997.
MSIE: The world's most standards-complaint web browser.