Verizon to buy AOL

Qhue

Qhue

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http://www.cnbc.com/id/102670331

Verizon announced this morning their intent to buy AOL at ~$50 a share ($7.50 over what it is currently trading at) or around $4.4 billion total. AOL would become a wholly owned subsidiary of Verizon in this software merger / acquisition deal.

My question is: what the hell does AOL have that is worth $4.4 billion dollars? The news stories speak about online streaming video content and such, but Verizon seems to be handling that fine right now without AOL. This also brings to mind Yahoo as I really have no idea how Yahoo makes any money at this point.

Are there people still paying subscription fees for AOL? Do they have some lucrative revenue stream from advertisers? They have their fingers in a number of acquisition rich sub-technologies?

I just have a hard time seeing how a purely content oriented tech company can still command meaningful value.

Edit: found this on Forbeshttp://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspe...for-the-stock/which seems to echo my comments above. Most of their revenue IS from Membership Services which is basically just your grandma still paying for the dial-up you set her up with before she went to the nursing home. It is also dropping like a rock and not being marched by ad revenue from Huffington Post and TechCrunch.

I suppose there must be something worth looting that the Verizon executives have their eyes on, but I can't for the life of me imagine what that is.
 
Kithani

Kithani

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Pretty sure my parents still have a sub to AOL but solely for the email address that they first set up back in the 90s. They make enough money that the cost isn't a factor for them and the trouble of having to get all of their equally technology-incompetent friends to use a new address probably isn't worth it to them.

I'd be curious how common that is in people in their 50s/60s that first set up with AOL back in the 90s, it might be more common than you'd think although not $4billion worth
 
Phelps McManus

Phelps McManus

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One of the most useful things I learned in college is that you shouldn't get attached to an email address that you might move away from. Gmail for life.

My parents also used AOL until around 2005. I had to work really hard to teach them that the AOL browser is NOT the internet. My mother-in-law still uses AOL.
 
fanaskin

fanaskin

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Celestein_sl said:
On top of that you don't even need to, back in like early 2000s they separated mail from the subscriptions(you can still use your aol email even if you canceled your dialup). I still keep my almost 25yr aol email in my email clients just in the event anyone wants to contact me I haven't seen in 10+ years(which surprisingly does happen every once in awhile).
Click to expand...
I got my parents off aol subscription when they had broadband and just wanted the email, they didn't even know it was free, but the interesting part was the salesman on the phone telling me all the stuff that comes with the subscription cause I asked him why I would even consider paying it. Apparently the sub comes with all these weird benefits, like they insure your computer and you can get money to buy parts, they have tech support lines that will help you solve non aol problems, aarp membership, I was just surprised at the weird shit they put in there to try and keep their old customers subscribed.

AOL Plans - AOL Help
 
Noodleface

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What AOL has that's valuable is stuff like Engadget, Techcrunch, etc. Best way to silence the internet is to control the media.
 
Tarrant

Tarrant

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AOL is the parent company to Huffington Post, owns Engadget as well as TechCrunch... All of which are major media outlets (as we know). They also own a wide variety of marketing firms and streaming outlets and are a major player in the online market place and their revenue was $1.8 billion last year and had a 39 percent growth in its advertising technology, year over year and is only showing signs of growing larger and larger.

AOL is a huge player and still to this day is growing. It's a good purchase for Verizon. That's what Verizon is buying, AOL's ability to be a major player in the online market place and online advertising capabilities.

Edit--apparently I can't spell "online".
 
BrutulTM

BrutulTM

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ISPs buying content and media outlets is not great news from a net neutrality standpoint, but I don't know if AOL has any properties that they haven't already run into the ground. I haven't read Engadget since AOL bought them and all of their main editors bolted for The Verge. I'm pretty sure only stupid people consider Huffington Post to be a real news outlet.
 
fred sanford

fred sanford

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Sadly, my in-laws not only sub to AOL to keep their email address but they also use the software. They constantly came to me to try and speed up their single core, maxed out at 1.5GB of RAM computer with that crap on it. I tried to get them off it once but it was a pain to remove and after I did they ended up complaining so much I put it back and never helped again until they upgraded the computer. They still run the shit software but with a quad-core and 16GB of RAM they don't call me for help anymore... and yes I built them a comp with retarded specs even though they ONLY use it for email and browsing. I know they won't upgrade for 10-15 years so it buys me some time
smile.png
 
Lanx

Lanx

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Kithani_sl said:
Pretty sure my parents still have a sub to AOL but solely for the email address that they first set up back in the 90s. They make enough money that the cost isn't a factor for them and the trouble of having to get all of their equally technology-incompetent friends to use a new address probably isn't worth it to them.

I'd be curious how common that is in people in their 50s/60s that first set up with AOL back in the 90s, it might be more common than you'd think although not $4billion worth
Click to expand...
before Gmail, in 2001 when i moved and got cable, you could pay i think 4bucks a month for aol w/o dialup, basically just keep the email address, i mean it was either that or try to keep your edu address, if they let you.

*edit
wow holy crap aol really does suck balls, never seen a msg for anything like this
We're sorry...

You do not have any account recovery options for resetting your password.

If you need help now, you can call customer service at 1-855-678-5082 Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. (EST), and Saturday & Sunday from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. (EST).
Click to expand...
 
Ritley

Ritley

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Well, you might be surprised. In rural areas it might be the only option outside of very expensive satellite internet.
 
Borzak

Borzak

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Lots of people only use the internet to check email. I read in another article AOL was pulling in $4-$6 million/month. I thought I also read verizon wanted to dump off huffington post but maybe I was dreaming.
 
BrutulTM

BrutulTM

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I have heard that a lot of old people don't realize that they can keep their AOL email account without paying for the dialup service. Most of the people subscribing to AOL dialup also have broadband and are paying for the service for literally no reason at all.

On This Week in Google they were saying that Verizon doesn't want the AOL content at all and they would probably spin off Huffpo and sell Engadget and the other media outlets. They bought AOL for some kind of ad placement technology, or at least that is the speculation.
 
BrutulTM

BrutulTM

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I thought you knew that no one reads your posts.
 
Qhue

Qhue

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Now we know the answer for how they intend to make bank off of AOL...by buying Yahoo as well. It was such an obvious thing and completely worth another $4bn.
 
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