AOL (TWX): Only Important Point About Yedda Buy
As much as we think Time Warner would (and should) sell AOL in a nanosecond if a cash buyer hit the purported $20 billion bid, the company certainly isn't counting on this happening. How do we know? Because AOL keeps forking over cash to buy companies. And not just "ad-network" companies. Content companies. Like distributed Yahoo Answers clone Yedda. (No terms disclosed).
As AOL seems determined to invest more money in its content strategy, we look forward to hearing more about this strategy (which presumably is more sophisticated than "anything web 2.0ish that is growing quickly that we can afford."). As we've discussed, AOL has several strong stand-alone properties, as well as a whole lot of email traffic (we estimate at least 40% of pageviews). Adding more properties to this portfolio makes sense, but only if there is a clear, overarching mission.
See Also:
Why Time Warner Should Sell AOL to Yahoo
Why Barry Diller Would Buy AOL But Won't
Some of AOL's Properties Are Actually Strong
As AOL seems determined to invest more money in its content strategy, we look forward to hearing more about this strategy (which presumably is more sophisticated than "anything web 2.0ish that is growing quickly that we can afford."). As we've discussed, AOL has several strong stand-alone properties, as well as a whole lot of email traffic (we estimate at least 40% of pageviews). Adding more properties to this portfolio makes sense, but only if there is a clear, overarching mission.
See Also:
Why Time Warner Should Sell AOL to Yahoo
Why Barry Diller Would Buy AOL But Won't
Some of AOL's Properties Are Actually Strong
Hey, I said that first, in a comment on one of the last posts you wrote about AOL. Except I put it a little differently; I said AOL probably wouldn't keep buying companies if TW intended to sell AOL off. But parting the business out like you suggest might be worth more to TW than selling it as a whole. Quigo in particular gets raves from everyone; I see that as a particularly valuable property for anyone to snap up.
Since no one asked and you haven't brought it up either: why doesn't AOL sell off their access business and just concentrate on getting all their ducks in a row? It would free them up from a consistent money-loser that's like a weight around their necks and it would free up operations money to concentrate on all those ads they'd like to push.
Just on a personal level, if they were to sell the access business I would never write a bad word about AOL again: I like the idea that they're well-positioned now to compete with Google for the lion's share of the ad market.