Google Acquires 5% of AOL 404
Heembo writes "CNN is reporting that Google just acquired a 5% stake in AOL for $1 Billion, shutting Microsoft out of the deal." Under this new agreement, among many other things, Google Talk will now interface with AOL's instant messenger according to the announcement on Google's site. From the announcement: "Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said: 'AOL is one of Google's longest-standing partners, and we are thrilled to strengthen and expand our relationship. Today's agreement leverages technologies from both companies to connect Google users worldwide to a wealth of new content.'"
ah well... (Score:4, Insightful)
Both entities are going to have to meet in the middle, as far as on screen visuals. Which can only be bad for the Google we all know and love.
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Adding 2 and 2... (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Google builds instant datacenters in shipping containers
3. Google buys stake in dying dialup ISP with millions of users
4. ??? (Do I really need to spell it out?)
5. Profit. A whole lot of it.
Re:I have to say, I'm a little worried... (Score:5, Insightful)
The naivety around here is mind-blowingly astounding.
Google's original, super-clean, no-ad interface was a differentiation to get them attention and eyeballs. Sure enough it worked wonders, and all of the techies and geeks (and overlaps between them) were raving about this great new search engine, encouraging all of their friends and family to use it as well (a no-pay sales force). Soon enough they started introducing those differentiated text-ads (which had a good click through rate because they were novel), and the rest is history.
All of that was in pursuit of the almighty buck. The fact that someone could say that the company is now doing something in pursuit of the almighty buck, while this young company sits with a valuation of $127 billion dollars, is astounding.
Re:G to the N to the A to the A (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
I stopped using AOL/ICQ a long time ago. It used to be popular, but AOL did a terrible job of maintaining that service. AOL's program and its assorted popups and ads were the predecessors of modern spyware and that has tainted AOL in the public's eye for the while. I think they should keep the customer base, but any future software endeavors headed by google should not include the AOL name.
AOL Google. Somehow sounds like Microsoft Linux. It doesnt fit.
Re:G to the N to the A to the A (Score:2, Insightful)
the fact that we are having this discussion plays into the troller's plans but I'd rather inform someone than worry about being trolled
Re:Something doesn't smell right about this (Score:5, Insightful)
I imagine there'll be some head shaking after my post. That's cool. I just think that within a year or so, there'll be colorful posts about how to live without Google. "I don't use GMail, I use some other new mail app because it supports color in the subjects. (Score:5, Interesting)"
Just so it's clear, it's not my intention to be insulting or 'right'. Mainly, this is curiosity. I'm posting this, then I'm going to bookmark it. In a year or so, I'll check back on it and see if I nailed it, or if I was once again talking out of my booty.
Re:I have to say, I'm a little worried... (Score:5, Insightful)
AOL hasnt been doing too well recently, but Google has been. Everyone can see whose philosophy works, and whose philosophy brings in the almighty buck.
We know this is good news for google, just not how good of a news is it?
Google bought a browser, and is now buying a major customer base. Theyve bought lots of dark fiber. Theyre in effect buying everything that surrounds a person, everything that a person uses to access the outside world. They wont risk losing such potential by making or using crappy software all of a sudden. If they allow people to use Linux, and one day remove ALL references to Microsoft on the Internet (the way Microsoft once tried for Linux websites), imagine the fallout. Google may be far more evil than AOL and Microsoft combined.
Re:I have to say, I'm a little worried... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:From the beginning... (Score:5, Insightful)
If they dominate the Internet that essentially trumps anything MS Windows can do. Microsoft has the Windows desktop. Google wants to be the Internet's home page. Which is more powerful? Which is more evil?
I'm a bit worried because if the Internet is taken over by an advertizing company you can kiss your privacy out the door! They'll collect every bit of info about you and your habits and connect the dots like not even the NSA could do.
Did it help Daimler-Benz to acquire Chysler? (Score:5, Insightful)
When a good company buys a bad company, the result is usually mediocrity. It's can be much harder to fix a crap company than to start fresh and build it right.
However, that isn't what's happening here. Google is only buying 5% AOL, and they already have a business relationship. Google crunched the numbers and determined that one Billion dollars was the right price to pay for renewing their lucrative contracts with AOL, establishing some new contracts, and disrupting Microsoft's plans.
Re:The plan (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I have to say, I'm a little worried... (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to say, I don't see how "buy into related company and make their products interoperable" is either against their old principles or evil. Isn't IM interoperability a good thing? They didn't buy into other companies pre-IPO because they didn't have bundles of cash to throw around, not because it was evil.
Re:I have to say, I'm a little worried... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I have to say, I'm a little worried... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do people assume that this is true of publicly held companies, but not true of pre-public companies working off of venture capital and private investment (even, Mom's cash)? When someone gives you a more modest pile of cash to help grow (or prevent the early demise of) a start-up company, you are already working to make that investment worth it (unless you want to lose your investors). Whether you're dealing with friends and family investing, or public shareholders, you'd better be doing your best to honor those investors' faith in you.
Take of your /. "I hate AOL" hat for a moment... (Score:5, Insightful)
One of Google's issues right now is diversification of revenue streams. Most of their revenue comes from search and ads. They need to find more revenue from different areas, so what if they decided to provide the backend search and advertising infrastructure to AOL? AOL still provides the same interface and experience to it's users while Google still gets to have it's same interface that the general
What if google provided AOL with the ability to provide customized Ads to AOL users instead of AOL having to perform the work? It's called outsourcing, execute what you are good at and outsource the rest to people that are better at those tasks. If Google is good at displaying the correct ads, then it's in AOL's best interest to leverage this ability. AOL pays for this service and then Google has one more revenue stream.
Re:I have to say, I'm a little worried... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually they structured their IPO such that this influence would be smaller than normal. I recall all the blowhards on the 24-hour news stations' business news shows telling everyone not to buy the Google IPO for long-term gain because of this. If I recall correctly, there are two types of stock shares: those owned by various people in Google, which get 10 votes per share; and those owned by the public, which get 1 vote per share.
Yes, obviously they want their stock price to go up. But they aren't nearly as accountable to shareholders as most public companies.
Re:I have to say, I'm a little worried... (Score:4, Insightful)
Your results may vary.
Wait wait wait, HOLD IT!!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said: 'AOL is one of Google's longest-standing partners, and we are thrilled to strengthen and expand our relationship. Today's agreement leverages technologies from both companies to connect Google users worldwide to a wealth of new content.
Leverages technologies? Wealth of new content? WTF?
Methinks Saruman's been looking into the palantir.
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
Google has a winning formula so I hope they don't let AOL corrupt them and ruin them.
Re:Interesting (Score:2, Insightful)
Google already had a network for its messaging client. It's called 'the Internet'. You may have heard of it.
Re:Interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
I sometimes need to be able to select an item, or items, and doing that with single click is annyoying. You can get a system where the focus is given to the item that the mouse hovers over but that's slow to operate. Give me single click to select, double click to operate, anyday.