Reuters is reporting that AOL’s parent TimeWarner is seeking to sell the property to either Yahoo or Microsoft. The discussions between the companies “have taken on new urgency ahead of Yahoo’s Aug 1 shareholders meeting.”
Discussions with Time Warner have accelerated as both Yahoo and Microsoft view AOL as beneficial to leverage their positions in online advertising. Over the past two years AOL focused on turning itself into a one-stop online advertising outfit.
Microsoft’s interest in acquiring AOL would serve to bulk up its display advertising business as well as gain more traffic More»

Labels: AOL, Microsoft, Online Advertising, Search, Yahoo

Time Warner has announced that they’ll be divesting themselves of the substantial stake they have in Time Warner Cable in what Stacy at GigaOm suggests is the beginning of a “Death by 1000 Cuts” where the ailing Time Warner empire will crumble via attrition as they sell themselves off piece by piece.
Although I’d suggest it is far too early to predict their ultimate fate, it would seem that the Time Warner approach is not what you’d expect from a company that wants to ultimately prevail in the media business. TW was one of the few More»

Labels: AOL, broadband, cable, companies, Time warner

AOL announced today that it purchased Sphere for an undisclosed amount. The company responsible for the “Sphere It” link which appears on a growing number of sites, describes itself as connecting your current articles to contextually relevant content from your archives as well as from blogs, media stories, video, photos, and ads across the web.
According to Ron Grant, AOL President, the acquisition will help AOL enhance content on its own sites and distribute its content across Sphere’s third-party publisher network. Additionally, the acquisition provides AOL with access to advertising inventory across Sphere’s network, More»

Labels: AOL, social media, web 2.0

Yahoo and AOL are in discussions to combine their web operations reports the WSJ. The move is aimed at thwarting Microsoft’s bid to acquire Yahoo.
The terms being discussed between AOL would fold into Yahoo and make a cash investment in return for about 20% of the combined entity. The deal which does not include AOL’s dial-up access business values AOL at about $10 billion. Yahoo would use the AOL cash investment and put up additional funds to buy back several billion dollars worth of its own stock at a price somewhere in the middle of the range between $30 More»

Labels: AOL, displace advertising, Online Advertising, Search, Yahoo

While US social networks are waiting on advertisers to shifting their ad spending their way. Tencent, a Chinese internet portal which operates QQ.com is not banking on advertising. The company reported revenues of $523 million and an operating profit of $224 million. About 60% of the revenue came from services like games, virtual currency called QQ coin (which is fake currency paid for with real money), an additional 21% came from mobile services like ringtones and only 13% came from online advertising. QQ.com is reported to have More»

Labels: AOL, Facebook, MySpace, Online Advertising, online services, social networks

Dow Jones VentureSource released a report on venture capital investment in Web 2.0 companies Tuesday saying that “investment boom may be peaking.”
A total of 178 deals received $1.34 billion in 2007, an 88% increase over 2006. Of that Facebook received $300 and Ning.com received $44 million. The rest of the distribution does not look too good from there. Venture capital investment has been sustaining many Web 2.0 startups, which are often chasing the same users. When the money dries up so will most Web 2.0 companies unless they find a new source More»

Labels: AOL, Microsoft, web 2.0, Yahoo

Today’s big news is AOL’s acquisition of Social Network Bebo for a cool $850 million. Kara Swisher has an excellent piece detailing some of the financial aspects of this mega-deal. She also notes that despite some significant success in the space, Bebo is very much in the shadow of Myspace and Facebook as a social network.
With only $5 million in EBITA for 2007, Bebo is selling at a whopping 160+ times earnings. Big companies tend to do be viewed more favorably than small ones by this EBITA multiple More»

Labels: AOL, bebo, Facebook, MySpace, social media, Social Networking, social networks

AOL is about to acquire Bebo for $850 million. AOL announces the Bebo acquisition. Bebo is the the third place Social Network in the US and far behind both Myspace and Facebook, but it is the first place social network in the British Isles and Second in New Zealand.
Based in London and begun in 2005, Bebo lists these features as major aspects of the Bebo philosophy of social networking:
Open Media: Open Media gives media companies free and open access to Bebo’s users worldwide and the Bebo community free and open access to thousands of hours of premium entertainment content More»

Labels: AOL, bebo, Microsoft, social networks, Yahoo

I met with AOL’s (TWX) EVP Curt Viebranz not long ago and now I learn that he is fired. He was appointed the new President of Platform A four weeks ago. Platform A in an umbrella group under which AOL’s advertising properties are organized. Curt was previously President of TACODA, a behavioral targeting ad network. Here is a list of their advertising acquisitions to date:
* Feb 2008, Buy.At, online affiliate marketing network* Feb 2008, Goowy, widget creator* July 2007, TACODA, behavioral targeting ad network* May 2007, ADTECH AG, More»

Labels: AOL, Online Advertising

AOL plans to launch up to 30 web sites to appeal to a larger audience and attract more advertisers. The plan is launch the sites by the end of 2008 in order to increase its online advertising presence.
Last year, AOL introduced 20 to 30 sites new sites such as “Asylum,” a men’s lifestyle site, and music site “Spinner” to go after niche interests within broader categories. , said Bill Wilson, executive vice president of programming. He declined to say what kinds of AOL is planning to start this year.
In 2007, as AOL shifted its focus to ad More»

Labels: AOL, Online Advertising