Still appealing…I don’t know

The problem with AOL’s numbers is that they are respectable but not enough to add to any of the major player’s bottom line. 100m is nothing to sneeze at but is only equivalent to the smallest pieces of the major portals (MSN Spaces gets more than 100m for example)
So I don’t see them having any interest.

The only people who would might be interested are companies looking to enter the online segment. But any company like that would have to look at the fact that they’d be buying a dying property that is outside their normal business model. Resurrecting a business is hard when you have experience in the market segment but when you know nothing about the segment its next to impossible.

Plus, all of the major portals are happy to make deals with perspective companies for things like cobranded portals. You see those all the time. So why would a company take the risk of buying AOL to get into the portal business when pairing with one of the bigger portals is cheaper and far less risky? They wouldn’t.

The above is a bit of a simplification I’ll admit, but not by much. So I wish AOL luck, but I also realize they’re really, REALLY going to need it.

Stories like that , are exactly , why i don’t think projects like Hulu will succeed.

These media companies just don’t get the Internet right.

Tom
true, which is why I think a merger with a smaller player might be the more likely outcome than a big player (although I wouldn’t bet on it). Those numbers have value, the only question now is can someone afford it on the terms that TW will want.

i have a mailing list of fans, and many of them have aol accounts, so i say its worth allot. e-mail accounts are worth allot because its guarenteed frequent visitors.

so there was no pony at all . i wonder what Kara got to say on this . surprisingly there is no update on her blog till now .

@Duncan - That’s the thing, I just can’t think of one company that would be compatible merger candidate. AOL is right in the “not-at-all-sweet-spot” of being too big for companies like Wordpress to afford and too small for companies like Microsoft to care about.

So I really agree with you I just can’t for the life of me think of someone whose small enough to be interested and big enough to have the means (though sometimes I think Rupert Murdoch will buy anything so there’s that).

@Stella – I don’t think anyone questions the fact that there is some value there the issue is how much trouble it would be to get it. I mean, Time Warner has all those e-mail accounts and they can’t seem to make any money off them so why would someone else even try.

Bottom line: I don’t think the existing assets are enough. If there is someone interested in merging with AOL they’d need a plan that could turn the tide and get AOL growing again.

@Tom: can’t make money off the email addresses? $5B seems like a lot (two words, “a lot”) of money to me, so they’re making something from them.

Thats so Sad how a company that dominated the internet at one point has fallen to the level of a 2 dollar whore (or 5.2 billion) being tossed around from company to company.

Google beware.

last I looked which has admittedly probably been last August, AOL was very competitive in Comscore’s “engagement” (amount of time spent) ranking. I believe it was #1 at the time on that basis vs. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Theoretically more engagement means more advertising opportunity, but it seems in practice AOL has not been able to turn that into extra cash.

Duncan, I don’t see them hooking up with a smaller player for precisely the reason you state (will they be able to afford TW’s terms?). It wolud be kind of cool if the AOL and Facebook trains crashed into each other, it just seems appropriate. Two trainwreck’s on a collision course. Probably too tidy of an ending

Could be an interesting purchase for microsoft, trying to expand their internet empire

@Saber – I’m just going off the last earnings report which reported a 32% decline in revenues tied specifically to subscribers leaving AOL (which are the e-mail accounts that Stella was referring to). But yeah, the ad business has been growing so they have that going for them (though the coming year might take a chunk out of ad revenue across the board which certainly won’t help)
@Robert S. – Though I’m sure it would never, ever happen I’d be curious to see a Facebook/AOL merger. I have no facts to back it up but I suspect AOL subscribers skew older being they’re mostly old Dialup customers who still use the portal. Given Facebook skews so young it isn’t the craziest idea in the world to put them together. But I doubt Facebook would risk it given how well they’re already doing.

@Robert S
fair point in terms of cost, but I take Tom’s points otherwise. There’s no obvious synergies in AOL being acquired by Google, Yahoo or Microsoft for example. It’s all duplicated traffic. Maybe Microsoft at a long shot, if we allow the Yahoo acquisition to fail.

I think a mid tier smaller player makes more sense (but again, not to the point that I’d bet on it). IAC comes to mind immediately, but there are people with cash out there who might make it happen. News Corp would be on that list. AOL would fit nicely into FIM…indeed of all the deals it actually makes a fair bit a sense over the rest. AOL + MySpace + FIM’s top tier gaming properties…..

Personally, I’d like Stevie Ballmer to set his sights on AOL and leave Yahoo! the hell alone.

So Carl Icahn get’s his way. LOL.

Back in 2006 Icahn was fighting hard for this. With the Yahoo-MSoft rumble, he’s smelling the ready cash floating around.

So much fun!

gfdfsfsdf

MySpace + AOL makes most sense.

Sell it to Microsoft. Yahoo + AOL > Google — maybe, maybe not.

aol and lycos should merge and then put themselves up for sale on ebay.

I think it would be great if Steve Case brought AOL back from Time Warner and reinvented it. I’d pick Case over Time Warner any day.

AOL has needed a shake-up for some time now, so any buyout would likely be an improvement. A lot of their online web services need to be brought into Web 2.0.

Stories like that , are exactly , why i don’t think projects like Hulu will succeed.

Bewkes acknowledged weakness in the AOL business and told the Bear Stearns media conference Tuesday that Time Warner was open to combining AOL with another company “whatever configuration makes it the strongest and the most valuable.”

I agree with Duncan (#11) that IAC immediately comes to mind. So do Comcast and AT&T. Dell would be an interesting acquisition as well.

It should be combined with SUP Media http://blog.quintura.com/2007/.....-sixapart/
since it has a strong backing from a billionaire investor and looks to expand globally

How about CNET?

AT&T - You heard it here first.

DSL, now with AOL.

The problem with a phone company such as AT&T is that they are likely to draw attention to the issue of net neutrality which is exactly what AT&T doesn’t want right now. Even if they were completely innocent people would accuse them of slowing down traffic to other portals and there’s no way AOL is worth the trouble that would stir up.

I do think IAC is probably the best choice all around. They have enough portal-compatible properties to form a nice symbiotic bond between their existing business and AOL. Not sure they could afford it but I think they’re probably AOL’s last, best hope.

could get some great assets like Truveo

My vote for suitors are Apple and eBay.

Aol and Time Warner messed up from the get go; just tell me why the hell didnt Time Warner merge aol with road runner ?

What would AOL do if they didn’t have AIM or Fanhouse??

AIM or Fanhouse???

AOL still hasn’t figured out how to monetize them! Give me a break!

Thanks for this very good article. Can I translate this with all comments and insert on my site? Thanks

Stories like that , are exactly , why i don’t think projects like Hulu will succeed.