Browse by Tags

• EarthLink eyeing AOL's dial-up business

  Posted Aug 20 2008, 10:14 AM by Kim Peterson
  Filed under: AOL, Time Warner, EarthLink
  Rating:

  Time Warner plans to separate AOL's dial-up business from the rest of the company next year. The next step would be to sell it off, and EarthLink is the most likely buyer. But is it in EarthLink's best interest to invest in a dying business?

  EarthLink CEO says that buying AOL's business is a possibility, according to the Wall Street Journal. The buy would allow EarthLink to scale up the business, which means more cash and opportunities to cut costs. Already, EarthLink's ongoing cost-cutting has lifted its share price from $7 a year ago to $9.09 today.   Read More...

  Discuss ( 1 comments) 649 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this

• AOL cutting underperforming properties

  Posted Jul 25 2008, 11:13 AM by Kim Peterson
  Filed under: AOL, Time Warner

  AOL is cutting back some blogs and closing down its Bluestring, Xdrive and AOL Pictures properties. Some people are speculating the division is trying to pretty itself up for a sale, but I think it's going to take a lot more than that to prep AOL. This sounds more like all-around trimming of underperforming sites in an economy that no longer allows those indulgences.
  

  Shares of AOL parent Time Warner are up 1% today to $14.63. Time Warner has reportedly been trying to shop AOL to the likes of Microsoft and Yahoo, but so far no one is biting.   Read More...

  Discuss (no comments) 1,243 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this

• AOL shopping itself to Yahoo, Microsoft

  Posted Jul 16 2008, 10:06 AM by Kim Peterson
  Filed under: Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo, Time Warner, Kim Peterson
  Rating:

  The back-and-forth competitive drama between Microsoft and Yahoo has opened a perfect opportunity for Time Warner to once again shop its AOL unit. Time Warner is reportedly looking at either merging AOL with Yahoo (with Time Warner getting a minority stake) or selling it outright to Microsoft. Time Warner shares have risen more than 2% today to $14.26 on the news, with Yahoo shares up nearly 4% to $22.38 and Microsoft shares up nearly 3% to $26.90.
  

  Time Warner has wanted to offload AOL for a while, but now Microsoft and Yahoo are scrambling for Plan B's in the aftermath of failed buyout talks. AOL has a growing ad network and an aggressive new strategy, and could be a decent acquisition for either company. The question is, where should it end up?   Read More...

  Discuss ( 5 comments) 2,441 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this

• Time Warner separating AOL's dialup business

  Posted Feb 06 2008, 12:12 PM by Kim Peterson
  Filed under: Google, AOL, Time Warner
  Rating:

  

  Time Warner is separating AOL's Internet dialup business from the rest of the division -- and it's about time. AOL has been trying to reinvent itself as a serious advertising company, and it couldn't do that with the dialup albatross around its neck.

  The growth of high-speed Internet access has made the dialup business a loser for years now. AOL had 9.3 million U.S. dialup subscribers at the end of 2007, a 29% decrease from a year earlier. There are an estimated 60 million high-speed Internet subscribers in the country.
  

  Still, that doesn't make AOL's industry position any better. There is no way the division can compete with two giants, Google and Microsoft-Yahoo (if that merger goes through), in the online advertising game. Sloughing off the dialup business "will significantly increase AOL's strategic options," CEO Jeff Bewkes said today in a conference call. Ding! The "for sale" sign has been hung.   Read More...

  Discuss ( 3 comments) 6,463 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this

• Cutting 2,000 jobs at AOL is a good start

  Posted Oct 15 2007, 11:23 AM by Kim Peterson
  Filed under: Google, Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo, Time Warner

  

  It's been a long time since AOL was considered a serious competitor to Microsoft or Yahoo. The company has never been a threat to Google. I would say today's announcement of 2,000 staff cuts marks the end of an era, but I think that already happened. 

  Paring 2,000 from a workforce of 10,000 is significant, but it isn't enough. According to a staff memo by CEO Randy Falco, the layoffs will help the company continue its massive push into online advertising. AOL changed its strategy in August 2006 to focus on advertising and move away from the subscription Internet access business. The company has been slashing jobs since 2001, when it had 18,000 employees.

  Certainly the cuts were necessary. In August, Time Warner pulled back its ad growth forecasts for the year. Its Q2 ad sales grew by only 16%, down from 40% for four previous quarters. And on the Internet access side, AOL lost 1.1 million paying subscribers. A lot of lines are trending down at AOL, and a massive layoff will help reverse that   Read More...

  Discuss (no comments) 786 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this