Verizon to Buy AOL

[bgguy]

Verizon buying AOL for $4.4B.

 

http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/12/verizon-aol-4-4b/

[JeffDTD]

More mobile video news and entertainment? Yawn. Nothing eats my data bucket quicker than streaming video on Verizon LTE. Hopefully there are some valuable patents being acquired here. The AOL name is dead to millenials and all I think about when I think of AOL is the sound of an old dial up modem

[WiWavelength]

The AOL name is dead to millenials and all I think about when I think of AOL is the sound of an old dial up modem

 

I am not so sure about that.  I encounter a fair number of Millenials and/or their parents who still use their AOL e-mail accounts.  AOL is what introduced them to e-mail, and it is the only address they have ever had.

 

AJ

[JeffDTD]

That makes me sad.

[bigmachine]

This deal is probably more about the brands and content producers under the AOL umbrella than the AOL brand itself.

 

Think:  Huffington Post, Engadget, Moviefone, Stylelist, etc.

[sbolen]

How many floppies can you buy for $4.4Bn?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[MacinJosh]

I am not so sure about that.  I encounter a fair number of Millenials and/or their parents who still use their AOL e-mail accounts.  AOL is what introduced them to e-mail, and it is the only address they have ever had.

 

AJ

 

I still have aol email addresses.

[sbolen]

I still have aol email addresses.

I only have one for the Sprint 25% corporate AOL/Time Warner employee discount. I can probably kiss that goodbye now, eh?

[MacinJosh]

I only have one for the Sprint 25% corporate AOL/Time Warner employee discount. I can probably kiss that goodbye now, eh?

I lost my 25% discount when I got my iPhone 5S on Easy Pay. So yeah, you will probably lose it too.

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 6+ using Tapatalk

[sbolen]

I lost my 25% discount when I got my iPhone 5S on Easy Pay. So yeah, you will probably lose it too.

Sent from Josh's iPhone 6+ using Tapatalk

I still have an employee discount with my current company… It's only 19%, though.

[lilotimz]

If people are dumb enough to still be paying for AOL (like dial up) then presumably to Verizon these people will be dumb enough to keep paying Verizon (after they buy aol) while Vzw provides practically no service to them. 

[MacinJosh]

If people are dumb enough to still be paying for AOL (like dial up) then presumably to Verizon these people will be dumb enough to keep paying Verizon (after they buy aol) while Vzw provides practically no service to them.

Last I checked, AOL dial up was $24.95. Verizon will most likely up the rate to $29.95 to 39.95/mo. Let's call it, the Verizon Premium!

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 6+ using Tapatalk

[gusherb]

My dad was paying AOL 24.95 a month for a good 8 years after they got DSL.

 

As soon as I found out about it I cancelled it. What a waste that was!

 

I still have and use my aol email address but have been transitioning to Gmail at a glacial pace. I see no point in dropping it all together cold turkey cuz it's worked for me all these years, continues to work, and I only view emails on my phone anyway so the web interface doesn't matter to me.

[cortney]

Last I checked, AOL dial up was $24.95. Verizon will most likely up the rate to $29.95 to 39.95/mo. Let's call it, the Verizon Premium!

 

 

Sent from Josh's iPhone 6+ using Tapatalk

A big red check, and it has to be good (or so the average American thinks)! Even though Verizon will probably figure out a way to compromise people's e-mail, security and remaining AOL "service" and make them pay for everything imaginable.

 

This deal is probably more about the brands and content producers under the AOL umbrella than the AOL brand itself.

 

Think:  Huffington Post, Engadget, Moviefone, Stylelist, etc.

Very true. Then we'd have Magenda and whatever you want to call Verizon Agenda or Red Agenda. 

 

"Verizon news, vNews (wtfe), only $0.89 per click"

Edited May 12, 2015 by cortney

[joshnys8913]

Seems like all companies want to buy every other company anymore lol

[P_M_G]

ah the good ole days of the AOL/Netscape wars...

[anthony.spina97]

 

I still have and use my aol email address but have been transitioning to Gmail at a glacial pace. I see no point in dropping it all together cold turkey cuz it's worked for me all these years, continues to work, and I only view emails on my phone anyway so the web interface doesn't matter to me.

I am in this exact same position. No sense getting rid of it since it all comes through my phone anyways.

 

-Anthony

[sbolen]

By the Numbers: AOL then and now

 

With its stock inflated by dot-com mania, AOL was worth $224 billion in today’s money back in 2000, just before it launched an audacious, expensive, and ill-fated bid to combine with Time Warner.

 

Nothing about AOL today is on the same scale as back then. In a neat bit of symmetry, the $4.4 billion price tag that Verizon is paying to buy the whole of AOL today is the exact same amount as the company’s dial-up subscription revenue in the year 2000. (Which would nonetheless be worth more now, $6 billion, after adjusting for inflation.)

[P_M_G]

Ha I remember dial up and the free cd-roms that AOL was always sending out...yes I'm that old...I also remember buying my first house and finding out I was just inside the area for DSL and jumped on it right away...then came cable and I laughed when ATT tried to get me to stay on DSL where I was lucky to get 768kbps down while my shiny new Cox modem was a blistering 3Mbps.

 

Last I checked my home cable is pushing 50Mbps since I don't feel the need to jump to a premium tier for higher.