Posts Tagged ‘AOL’
Om Malik
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Thursday, April 10, 2008 |
6:16 AM PT |
Back in December 2005, Google paid $1 billion to buy 5 percent of AOL from Time Warner, valuing AOL at a whopping $20 billion. Fast-forward to April 2008. According to The Wall Street Journal, AOL and Yahoo are in talks to combine the two companies. AOL is being valued at $10 billion for the sake of this new proposed deal.
Under the terms being discussed between Yahoo and Time Warner, the latter would fold its AOL unit into Yahoo and make a cash investment in return for about 20% of the combined entity, people familiar with the situation said. The deal, which wouldn’t include AOL’s dial-up access business, would value AOL at about $10 billion.
What that tells us:
* No way AOL’s loser dial-up business is worth $10 billion.
* In the last 25 months, AOL lost half its value.
* And Google took a bath. Their $1 billion investment (5 percent) is now worth exactly half: $500 million.
Of course, AOL has been selling off its parts for the past few years and has raised close to around $3 billion, including the $1 billion it got from Google.
Om Malik
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Wednesday, April 9, 2008 |
2:10 PM PT |
Yahoo and Google are reportedly going to run a two-week test in which a limited amount of Yahoo’s U.S. traffic will carry Google ads. If all goes well, then a broader outsourcing search arrangement could be struck by the two companies. And as they experiment, talks of combining AOL and Yahoo are gaining traction. Continue Reading. Continue »
Om Malik
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Thursday, April 3, 2008 |
7:30 AM PT |
Given my current obsession with digital mapping and all things location-based, don’t be surprised if you see more short news blurbs here about deals such as the one announced by AOL’s MapQuest and General Motor’s OnStar. OnStar is launching a new service called eNav, which, as their press release states:
…will allow subscribers to have directions sent from their computer to specially-equipped vehicles. Once the directions have been sent to the user’s car, they can then be accessed via voice-guided commands. In 2009, under the terms of the agreement, eNav users will be able to download directions directly to their vehicle’s screen-based navigation system.
The eNav service, which piloted last year under the name “Web Destination Entry,” is available to all of GM’s 2.65 million Turn-by-Turn-capable vehicles as of today. (See video below the fold) Continue »
Om Malik
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Wednesday, March 26, 2008 |
9:21 AM PT |
The Wall Street Journal today writes about AOL’s survival strategy and how it revolves around Platform A, the online advertising platform/division that the company hopes will help it recover from the loss of its dial-up business.
AOL has spent nearly a billion dollars to put together Platform A, buying Lightingcast (online video ads provider, for $100 million in 2006), Third Screen Media (mobile ads, for $105 million in 2007), AdTech (ad serving, 2007, price undisclosed), Tacoda (behavioral targeting, for $274 million in 2007), Quigo (contextual targeting, for $347 million in 2007) and Perifilliate (click-per-action marketing, for $125 million in 2008).
But as the WSJ points out, things haven’t been going well for the division. Personally, I would give them a failing grade. In its first six months, Platform A has: Continue »
Found|Read
Carleen Hawn
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Monday, March 24, 2008 |
12:03 AM PT |
Question of the Day: Do social networks exploit their user-content generators?
I don’t know if you saw Billy Bragg’s Op-Ed yesterday, The Royalty Scam, but it’s worth reading as a criticism of social media business models that leverage the intellectual and artistic capital of users to build a traffic base that can be monetized — and then don’t share the wealth. Continue »
Found|Read
Carleen Hawn
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Monday, March 24, 2008 |
12:03 AM PT |
Question of the Day: Do social networks exploit their user-content generators?
I don’t know if you saw Billy Bragg’s Op-Ed yesterday, The Royalty Scam, but it’s worth reading as a criticism of social media business models that leverage the intellectual and artistic capital of users to build a traffic base that can be monetized — and then don’t share the wealth. Continue »
Found|Read
Carleen Hawn
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Monday, March 24, 2008 |
12:03 AM PT |
Question of the Day: Do social networks exploit their user-content generators?
I don’t know if you saw Billy Bragg’s Op-Ed yesterday, The Royalty Scam, but it’s worth reading as a criticism of social media business models that leverage the intellectual and artistic capital of users to build a traffic base that can be monetized — and then don’t share the wealth. Continue »
Found|Read
Carleen Hawn
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Monday, March 24, 2008 |
12:03 AM PT |
Question of the Day: Do social networks exploit their user-content generators?
I don’t know if you saw Billy Bragg’s Op-Ed yesterday, The Royalty Scam, but it’s worth reading as a criticism of social media business models that leverage the intellectual and artistic capital of users to build a traffic base that can be monetized — and then don’t share the wealth. Continue »
Om Malik
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Friday, March 14, 2008 |
8:02 AM PT |
AOL, fresh off its $850 million purchase of social network Bebo, is now eyeing KickApps, a white-label social software company, reports Kara Swisher. Her sources peg the deal price at around $90 million. The deal hasn’t been inked just yet. KickApps, based in New York, has raised $17 million from Softbank Capital, Prism VentureWorks and Spark Capital. I contacted one of their investors but he wouldn’t comment on the rumor.
Update: As an aside, KickApps CEO Alex Blum is an ex-AOLer. I checked with my sources and it seems like AOL isn’t the only candidate looking at KickApps and the $90 million number isn’t even close to what company wants. Given that they have raised $17 million, KickApps must have a valuation of $40-50 million, and their investors must be looking for at least 3x return on their money.
When I asked AOL COO Ron Grant if AOL was going to be doing any more deals soon, he declined to comment but said the company will be “aggressive.” I have heard from multiple sources that AOL is kicking the tires at many Silicon Valley startups. From the looks of it, Time Warner is ready to spend to do a complete makeover of AOL. Call it dressing up before a spinoff, regardless of what happens with Yahoo.
Stacey Higginbotham
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Thursday, March 13, 2008 |
9:49 AM PT |
Some quick math makes Facebook’s $15 billion valuation look even crazier. Apparently the guys over at Silicon Valley Insider also bothered to crunch the numbers.
- Bebo sold to AOL this morning for $850 million and have about 40 million users, costing $21.25 per user.
- In July 2005, News Corp. purchased the parent of MySpace for $580 million. At the time, MySpace had about 21 million users, costing $27.62 per user.
- Those are as direct as we can make it, but let’s say we bring out a crazy deal where the buying company admitted they overpaid. When eBay shelled out $4.1 billion for Skype, it paid about $52 per user.
Admittedly Microsoft has plenty of money and probably didn’t worry too much about the valuation when agreeing to terms with Facebook, so we’ll raise our estimates a bit. Also, Facebook has shown an unwillingness to sell or go public, indicating that it’s building for the long haul, meaning its users could grow in value over time. But at the time of the Microsoft deal, Facebook had about 50 million users who were valued at $300 each. Readers, care to tell me how Facebook users can achieve that value?
Kara Swisher has her own math on the Bebo deal as well.
