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Verizon to Buy AOL for $4.4B
- r721 11y agoUnpaywalled: https://archive.is/kVlwE https://archive.is/kVlwE
- baldfat 11y agoHuffington Post, TechCrunch and Engadget how do these fit? Does this mean these might go away?????? Can one be so lucky?
- randomname2 11y agoNow that the FCC is involved with internet regulation, why do away with them? Verizon can use them to put out talking points and keep competitors out by getting favorable regulation passed.
- higherpurpose 11y agoI foresee Mike Arrington quitting again (or did he leave again already? I've lost track)
- jordigg 11y agoWe'll see a Verizon Disrupt soon
- Achshar 11y agoConsidering how irrelevant AOL itself has been to the mainstream internet for some time now that price tag seems awfully high. They do own a bunch of popular bligs/websites though. So maybe that's it.
- itsbits 11y agoYou obviously unaware of Video Ad Management tools they offer...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- aioprisan 11y agoThe internal memo: http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/12/verizon-aol-4-4b/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/12/verizon-aol-4-4b/
- randomname2 11y agoAs a reminder, AOL bought Time Warner for $180 billion 15 years ago.
- WDCDev 11y agoTo give you some perspective. When Time Warner and AOL merged back in 1999, AOL was valued at $166 Billion.
- ra1n85 11y agoRecently, a woman that I shared an elevator with commented on my laptop - she noticed that I worked at a large tech company. She commented that she too had worked for a large tech company at one time - AOL. I smiled. She then immediately recounted the day she and her entire floor were laid off unceremoniously. Luckily, that was about the time that we reached her floor.
- earlyriser 11y agoHonest question: why do you say luckily?
- 67726e 11y agoNo the commenter you're asking, but I've never had a constructive conversation with "those types" - the kind who go out of their way to talk about getting laid off from a tech company. Of all the ones I've spoken with, it followed the pattern of "BigCo outsourced jobs to those darn Foreigners, and I got laid off, and it will happen to you too!". In particular I worked with a former DBA for IBM at a grocery store in highschool, so I used to hear these tirades. What I never heard was any constructive career advice, or any details other than the outsourcing and cheap foreigners. Now the cynic in me says if low wage, and probably lower skilled workers can take your job, you probably suck. Regardless, it has always struck me a bit like talking to that xenophobic uncle at Thanksgiving type scenario. Nothing good to come.
- AwesomeGriffin 11y ago> probably lower skilled workers can take your job, you probably suck More probably these decisions are made at a very high level and the individual abilities of these workers aren't even taken into consideration. The real lessons here are never trust your employer, loyalty is a two-way street and always have an exit plan.
- yla92 11y agoOfficial announcement : http://www.verizon.com/about/news/verizon-acquire-aol http://www.verizon.com/about/news/verizon-acquire-aol
- dec0dedab0de 11y agoWould that make AOL the first company to provide Fiber and Cable?
- baldfat 11y agoCable I didn't know AOL had ever made it into cable. Or are you meaning dial up over telephone cable?
- sswaner 11y agoI think he is referring to Verizon. Now that they are part of the Verizon family AOL can get you online via, fiber, cable or dialup.
- dec0dedab0de 11y agoActually, I didn't realize AOL and Time Warner split.
- briandh 11y agoNot only did AOL and Time Warner split, but Time Warner Cable is a separate company from Time Warner.
- Aqwis 11y agoIs AOL still an Internet access provider?
- acjohnson55 11y agoYes, there's a shrinking, but still very lucrative, dialup business. It's provided the capital for Aol's growth into media and advertising these past several years.
- raverbashing 11y agoGotta love old people adverse to change, or thinking they still need to pay for email.
- codingdave 11y agoWhat does dialup have to do with email? You still need connectivity to access free email providers. And for older folk who do nothing other than email, do not have smartphones, but do have a landline... 20 a month on dialup makes more sense than 50 a month for Comcast. Sure, it sounds ridiculous to us who are permanently connected and do not even have landlines... but to the 65+ community, there really still is a small, shrinking, but real use case for dialup access.
- dangrossman 11y agoHe may have been being more literal than you think. I can name 3 people that were paying for an AOL subscription because they thought they needed to keep it to keep using their AOL e-mail addresses. They all had broadband from their cable companies, they weren't dialing up.
- krisdol 11y agoThey may have needed it at one point. At the time I quit AOL, there was no way to keep the email address, and they did not provide IMAP access or forwarding. Seriously. They (very badly) practiced the lock-in attitude. I just visited mail.aol.com and realized that things have changed a lot.
- huskyr 11y agoFor those who are wondering why this might be a good investment: AOL still has 2 million (!) dialup subscribers that fork over $20 a month. http://qz.com/401567/more-than-2-million-american-homes-are-stuck-in-the-90s-with-aol-dialup-internet/ http://qz.com/401567/more-than-2-million-american-homes-are-...
- jenius 11y agoI feel like this is a perfect reason why this is a bad investment. Anyone who is still subscribed to AOL dialup is honestly probably a senior citizen or technology-illiterate. AOL is not even marketing their dialup service anymore. These people over time will slowly decline until those 2 million eventually hit zero. In fact, you can clearly see the nearly exponential downward trend right on the article you linked. This makes it a nice amount of basically free money for AOL currently, but an absolutely terrible investment for the future.
- andyjohnson0 11y agoA significant number of AOL dialup customers are living in rural areas where broadband is just not available [1]. [1] http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/neighbors-still-use-dial-internet-88957 http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/neighbors-still-u...
- mooredinty 11y agoFor the past couple of years, AOL has been a place where companies go to die. Will Verizon pick up that mantel and continue offering the much needed "Death with Dignity" service for waning tech companies?
- itsbits 11y agoI am working in AdapTV. With AOL, we didn't die but surely didn't improve...
- vpeters25 11y agoI took a contract at this great place with highly experienced team members which had been acquired by Verizon a year before. I was assured Verizon would not mess with the great thing they had going but slowly, almost all of them got fed up with the changes and left, including our manager. It was not just our team, almost every week there would be a "bye and thanks for all the fish" email from some higher up. Just last week was talking to a recruiter who told me of massive layoffs on that place last year.
- itsbits 11y agoThats lil bit worrying case..But unless Verizon wants to kill of Video Ad Management Product "ONE by AOL", this may not happen here. AFAIK Verizon doesn't have anything related on this..
- smrtinsert 11y agoLike Techcrunch or Huffington Post?
- jasonlbaptiste 11y agoNot true at all - HuffPo has grown, Adapt.tv is a big win, 5Min was the foundation for video (they're top 3 now), Weblogs Inc setup content division, etc. I'm sure there are some bad deals done, but they've had a great track record on buying+integrating.
- randomname2 11y agoAOL in a big media deal, Clinton running for office, stocks at all time highs. What's not to love about 2000.
- Tloewald 11y agoClinton and Bush.
- danesparza 11y agoHuh? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2000 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_elec...
- zedpm 11y agoIn 2000 Hillary was running for (and won) a US Senate seat in New York. Also in 2000 George W Bush was running for and won the US Presidency.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- bengarvey 11y agoWhich Clinton was running in 2000?
- 11y ago
- peter303 11y agoI wonder if that makes Ariana Huffington richer than her ex-husband. Mike H.: scion of wealthy Texas oil family. Former California representative, failed run for Senate using family money. Came out as gay man after loss and now is an indie film producer. Ariana H.: colorful journalist and political analyst retaining native Greek accent. While married she was a conservative, but became flaming liberal after divorce. Started dot.com news site, sort of the mirror image of conservative Matt Drudge. AOL bought her out a few years ago and she is a significant stock holder.
- selimthegrim 11y agoMaybe she'll actually get around to paying all her bills in Santa Barbara this time.
- tomswartz07 11y agoThis might be a good investment: AOL still has over 2 million dialup subscribers. It's not unreasonable for a company that 'owns' the copper going to homes to also manage the dialup internet connections there as well.
- nashashmi 11y agoI am having an epiphany. AOL, an internet provider and ad company, buys Time Warner. AOL gets spun off into an independent company. AOL reinvents itself as a media and ad company. Verizon, an internet and TV provider, buys AOL. This is happening after Verizon reinvented itself from a phone company. Merger 2.0 is making more sense than it was the first time, but still, nonsense enough.
- tonetheman 11y agoThat is more than 4K distressed babies.
- kreilly 11y agoThis is not about dial-up or media. This is about ad tech. Aol is done a very nice job of acquiring sold assets in this space. I think this is a smart move.
- jmhuret 11y ago$4.4 Billion is the equivalent of 7.3 Trillion free hours of AOL service via promotional cd-rom.
- temuze 11y agoAssuming you get 1000 hours per CD, you're saying CDs cost about $1.65. You could probably get CDs in bulk for an order of magnitude or two cheaper. Assuming the CDs are $0.01, that's 440 trillion free hours. Great deal for Verizon.
- jerf 11y agoOn the other hand, with dial up at ~50kb/s, and the top-end Verizon FiOS running at 150Mb/s, that 440 trillion free hours of dialup is only 146 billion hours of FiOS, or $33/hour of FiOS 150Mb/s, or, put in the way that the market usually charges for bandwidth, approx $24,000/month for 150Mb/s bandwidth. That is way more than the going rate for that sort of bandwidth.
- cityzen 11y agoso what happens to the digital prophet??
- soylentcola 11y agoI think Shingy will replace the "can you hear me now?" guy.
- darklajid 11y agoToday I learned that WhatsApp is 5 times more valuable than AOL - and I never understood either of these companies' market.. Interesting though - that company 'felt' like a giant when I seriously got into using the web and although the article seems to imply that the operations of AOL continue (using the AOL brand?) it's fascinating to see such a company being swallowed.
- aylons 11y agoSorry, but why do you believe WhatsApp is overvalued? They have an incredible mindshare, it is the only app (besides Facebook), that I see moms and grandmas using on a daily basis. Heck, my mom talk to me mostly through it. She evens send me emoticons, pictures and voice notes!
- chii 11y agohas your mom or other people you know ever paid for whatsapp? I know i've never seen anyone pay, just anecdotally.
- sangnoir 11y agoI've paid for myself and my mother-in-law (you can pay for a contact's subscription)
- epmatsw 11y agoI've never seen a person in the US actually use WhatsApp to talk to another person in the US. I used to occasionally see someone use it to talk to friends who were traveling abroad, but that's mostly been replaced by iMessage or Hangouts at this point.
- tjbiddle 11y agoYou answered your own question: In the US. WhatsApp is huge outside of the US. If memory serves correctly, SMS has always been expensive and MMS never really took off - once the data messaging platform came to be WhatsApp really served that market and has done well because of it.
- EGreg 11y agoAOL merged with Time Warner and now Verizon buys it. How times change. Still I am concerned about all the consilidstion in the telecom industry...
- lxchase 11y agoWhile many are seeing this as bizarre, it is not. This is a programmatic and verticalization play. Verizon has been investing in adtech companies and provides the means of distribution. The deal allows them to now own the content as well. As someone in the advertising agency, Verizon has been one of the few telecoms that have enabled advertisers to utilize their data. This deal furthers their ability to tie mobile data with content for targeting and reporting purposes. You also have to remember Verizon is a TV content distributor that may pave way to AOL content distribution and allow true ROI measurement on Linear TV.
- tw04 11y agoIt's not the least bit bizarre, but it is EXACTLY what people are (or should be) afraid of. The people who own the pipes should NOT own the content, or they will be incentivized to leverage their monopoly on our computer screens to provide unfair advantages to their content. The FCC should have drawn a line in the sand and been done with it before the Comcast deal was allowed to go through (but of course the head of the FCC at that time mysteriously took a cushy job at Comcast after completing her tenure). You want to own the pipes, that's all you own.
- chii 11y agoor mandate that pipes should have universal access, so that it becomes like a utility (i'd compare it to electricity). If you decide to sell your own brand of toasters, you cannot be allowed to send 'cleaner/better' electricity to your own toaster than to your competition's.
- pyvpx 11y agoif so, then why should the pipes be privatized at all? in that case, the pipes should be built out and maintained at a governmental-level and leased back at a uniform/standardized price to all providers.
- jmngomes 11y agoIt makes sense to me that the government should own "the pipes", and then lease them to competing firms, as these are a vital communication infrastructure.
- hownottowrite 11y agoSo I guess CompuServe is back in one piece again...
- tat45 11y agoAnother former AOLer here. They tried to make a run at the broadband market in the early aughts by partnering with various telcos (I know; I was part of the team that built the back-end interface with the ISPs), but it was too little, too late. I never understood how AOL thought that would be sustainable in the long term. A few months after I left the entire billing department saw deep cuts after AOL nixed their monthly subscription fees for dial-up.
- yuhong 11y agoMakes me wonder what would have happened if this acquisition was done a decade ago.
- gcb0 11y agohere's the armchair analysis: AOL was valued at 160+b at it's peak. and it was making lots of money as a "media" company to the point they thought the right thing was to buy Warner. then they lost the captivity of their dial up clients, and their media business vanished overnight. Verizon realized they own the pipes and they want aol know how on how to capitalize it to profit from media while it has the audience captivated. people are finally realizing that having control over the pipes give you control over the content. AOL realized that too late. expect Verizon to fight very hard on net neutrality to be able to monetize their hard earned eye balls. and welcome a new era of mobile bloatware and deals like you already see in south america, where you can get a 100mb data plan only, but traffic to face book and whatsup is free.
- inthewoods 11y agoAn AOL/Yahoo combo has been widely discussed on the web - I guess that is one less possibly for Yahoo (unless Verizon wants to buy that too.)
- mgarfias 11y agoShoulda held onto the pitiful amount of stock they gave us.
- dheera 11y agoAnyone else read it as "Verizon to buy AOL for $4.48"?
- orthecreedence 11y agoThat would be ridiculously overpriced.
- Dirlewanger 11y agoTime to discard every media entity under AOL. You can be damned sure Verizon will be tightening up how wild they get on certain issues e.g. Net Neutrality and anything else that can affect their bottom lines.
- chiph 11y agoWhile I don't doubt that Verizon will be able to convert some of those AOL subscribers to faster broadband service, I suspect a lot of them either can't upgrade, or won't upgrade. The dial-up subscribers are mostly a cash cow ($180/yr each, about 12 years to recoup the investment) and everyone is talking about them, but I wonder if there are other AOL properties that Verizon also values that can help justify the premium they paid.
- acomjean 11y agoI used to use AOL. Before broadband to the home, AOL had lots of modems and local access numbers. I traveled a fair bit and that was really useful, for my monthly alotment of 3 hours.... This was a while ago (AOL was giving away floppy disk before CDs.) It was a walled garden, and since most people were on AOL, besides email there wasn't much outside communicating. Frankly at the time there wasn't nearly as much on the web. When AOL unleashed their users on the web it was a big deal. AOL really got killed by broadband to the home, which they couldn't offer. I hope that this doesn't turn into a onerous add push at Fios and DSL users. Verizon does some strange things like redirecting missed DNS hits to an ad page.
- ck2 11y agoWith what I know about both companies, they are practically made for each other. Verizon needs a gullible user base and anyone still using AOL basically is purely gullible. BTW how does Verizon get away with breaking the law every single day: when they were licensed 700mhz by the US Government (on behalf of the US people) for LTE they were required to not restrict user devices on that band. Go try bringing your own non-verizon LTE device to verizon and see what they say (the answer is always no)
- skazka16 11y agoAOL stock price is now almost 30% more comparing to previous week. Not a bad move from shareholders.
- hackuser 11y agoAs people tell their AOL stories, note the other front page post today that Mozilla has released Firefox 38. Thank you AOL!
- hackuser 11y agoIs Verizon competing with Comcast, who bought its own media company (NBC Universal)? Are the big communications companies now competing over vertical integration? If they invest in vertical integration, that might give them a strong incentive to maximize their investments by priortizing their own media over others, degrading the open Internet.
- snowwrestler 11y agoThe answers are yes, yes, and yes. As content becomes unbundled from the wire, wire-owning companies need to become content companies if they want to avoid becoming a utility.
- TodPunk 11y agoFunny that WhatsApp is somehow WAY more valuable than AOL is. I feel old.
- brayton 11y agoSurprised we aren't seeing the Gov jump in with Antitrust laws. Verizon can't have 4G AND dialup! Just not fair
- godgod 11y agoWhy