aol

AOL's Bebo buy was controversial among execs, blog reports

Not everyone at AOL was in favor of plunking down $850 million for social network Bebo, the Silicon Alley Insider reported Thursday.

Citing anonymous sources, editor Henry Blodget said a number of senior managers at the struggling dot-com thought--and still think--that Bebo won't turn out to be an ad revenue treasure trove.

Executives at several key AOL divisions, including Advertising.com, the Platform-A ad network, and the Userplane chat software product, were not consulted on the acquisition, according to Blodget's sources. "Our sources believe that Ron (Grant, chief operating officer of AOL), at least, was aware that … Read more

Facebook's collision course with the big portals

Mark Zuckerberg describes Facebook as a service designed to help people communicate better, primarily through the social graph, which is the network of connections and relationships between people.

The social graph, he said, is the reason Facebook works. The popular social applications, such as Flirtable, FunWall and SuperPoke, built on the Facebook platform, are only a small part of Facebook's bigger ambition to help people communicate better.

In fact, Facebook is on a collision course with the more mature Web colonies--AOL, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.

One of the key metrics of a major portal is stickiness--the number of applications … Read more

AOL-Bebo: What the Web's saying

Glancing at the many blog posts about AOL's unexpected acquisition of social network Bebo, there's no real consensus as to whether it's a smart idea. If anything, the collective mood of the Web's talking heads seems to be thus: if AOL can smoothly integrate Bebo with its AIM client and Platform-A ad network, great. Unfortunately, AOL doesn't have that kind of track record.

Perhaps the most optimistic of the bunch was CenterNetworks blogger Allen Stern, who said that this really can't be bad for AOL's advertising arm. "It brings their ad inventory for Platform-A … Read more

Forget Yahoo, Microsoft should acquire AOL

After today's announcement that AOL has acquired Bebo for $850 million in the hopes that it will be able to capitalize on the upswing in social networking, I had a thought. Knowing that AOL is trying to get a deal done with Yahoo and the company owns some solid properties, why doesn't Microsoft forget about Yahoo for a while and acquire AOL?

Sound crazy? If so, consider the fact that AOL has quickly become one of the largest competitors to Microsoft in its attempt to acquire Yahoo and at the same time, it's barely standing on the backs of sound editorial content from Weblogs, Inc. and now, social networking -- two areas Microsoft currently has no influence in.

In essence, the deal for AOL would be a good one for Microsoft and could actually help it in its negotiations for Yahoo. Here's why:… Read more

Buy Bebo? Better to just dump AOL

Why does AOL have a thing for acquiring companies with silly names? (Last month, it bought widget maker Goowy.

My colleague Dan Farber weighed in earlier Thursday on whether Bebo can "save" AOL, a question that remains impossible to answer in the near term.

Truth be told, I've compiled a stack of old magazine articles since the turn of the century (I love saying that phrase) detailing the "challenge at hand" for, first, the merged AOL Time Warner and then Time Warner, which dropped AOL from its moniker in 2003. At a certain point, however, … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 680: Wherein Rafe explains

EPISODE 680

AOL buys social network Bebo for $850 million http://www.news.com/8301-13577_3-9893014-36.html

MPAA boss: Net neutrality would cramp our P2P snooping plans http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/ 20080313-mpaa-boss-net-neutrality-would-cramp-our-p2p-snooping-plans.html http://opinion.latimes.com/bitplayer/ 2008/03/mpaa-clarifies.html

Report: Microsoft says no Blu-ray for Xbox 360 http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9893090-7.html

Blu-ray players: Mighty pricey http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9893149-7.html http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/03/12/ lack-of-competition-sends-blu-ray-player-prices-upward/

David in Vegas: Sony (and Movie Theater owners who charge me $6 for rubbery popcorn in a theater where you can’t (send in an … Read more

Podcast: AOL gets social with Bebo, Microhoo talks and Semantic Web progress

This week on the EIC Squared podcast Larry Dignan and I discuss the merits of AOL's $850 million Bebo acquisition and the status of Microsoft's pursuit of Yahoo. Apparently the Microsoft and Yahoo are holding informal talks. The general consensus among industry watchers is that Yahoo should take the money and run, especially if its first quarter earnings are going to disappoint Wall Street. Larry explains the role IT played in helping to turn Eliot Spitzer into an ex-governor of New York, and I outline the latest developments in the Semantic Web, including Yahoo's efforts in this … Read more

AOL buys social network Bebo for $850 million

This post was expanded at 6:43 AM PT with details from the AOL-Bebo conference call.

In an unexpected move, AOL has acquired social-networking site Bebo. The price tag: $850 million in cash.

Rumors had floated over the past few months that Bebo, which has over 40 million members, was up for sale. Reports suggested a $1 billion price tag, but there were few hints as to potential buyers. Though Bebo had already partnered with AOL's AIM messaging client to facilitate friend-invite interoperability between the two services, even the most creative blogger speculation didn't seem to point to … Read more

Disney won't try to buy AOL, CEO says

Walt Disney is eyeing acquisitions, but AOL is not one of them, according to the Associated Press.

Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger, speaking at a media conference on Wednesday, said the company is interested in purchasing other companies, but not Time Warner's AOL.

Time Warner Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes has said his company would consider selling off or spinning out AOL.

Regarding reports that Yahoo is looking to partner with another company to thwart a takeover bid from Microsoft, Iger said: "We watch these things from afar."