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About the AOL announcement (2005)

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Re: About the AOL announcement (2005)

#11

Post by bmurray7jhu »

robk wrote: post #8

This was important at the time. AOL's ad inventory converted VERY well and it was very strategic to keep it out of the hands of Microsoft/Bing and Yahoo, both of whom were serious competitors (on hindsight this was where they were actually beginning to diverge and hit their maxima). In the two sided ads marketplace this was critical to have the most and the highest-quality inventory to bring more network effects w/ a…

Google sold back it's 5% stake in 2009 for $283.0 million.

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/technology/companies/28ao...

Re: About the AOL announcement (2005)

#12

Post by richardhod »

robk wrote: post #8

This was important at the time. AOL's ad inventory converted VERY well and it was very strategic to keep it out of the hands of Microsoft/Bing and Yahoo, both of whom were serious competitors (on hindsight this was where they were actually beginning to diverge and hit their maxima). In the two sided ads marketplace this was critical to have the most and the highest-quality inventory to bring more network effects w/ a…

minor correction: Bing didn't exist then; it was created in 2009.

Re: About the AOL announcement (2005)

#14

Post by duxup »

ninedays wrote: post #4

> There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever. How times have changed. https://mashable.com/2012/08/28/google-homepage-ad https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/24/google-br...

I feel like they did do some of that, although the spirit of what they're saying remains true to some extent.

Re: About the AOL announcement (2005)

#15

Post by gcb0 »

benhoyt wrote: post #10
ninedays wrote: post #4

> There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever. How times have changed. https://mashable.com/2012/08/28/google-homepage-ad https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/24/google-br...

To be fair, there aren't "banner ads" on either the Google homepage or the search results pages. Neither are there "crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up". There are definitely ads on the search results pages, and they take too much vertical space IMO, but they're text and small images, not flashing and tacky stuff.

completely depends on your definition of "crazy". I mean Google used to show ads for a particular drug if you searched for suicide methods that would call for such drug.... that's pretty crazy in my book.

also most of the deal was about video ads. just take a look at YouTube.

Re: About the AOL announcement (2005)

#18

Post by NelsonMinar »

Note this is the 2005 deal. The 2002 ad deal with AOL is probably the single moment that defined the business success of Google, the moment when the AdWords product took off and became the unstoppable juggernaut. I'm still impressed with Google's executive team, particularly Salar, that the deal worked even better than we could have hoped. https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/02/business/technology-aol-s...

Re: About the AOL announcement (2005)

#20

Post by modzu »

benhoyt wrote: post #10
ninedays wrote: post #4

> There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever. How times have changed. https://mashable.com/2012/08/28/google-homepage-ad https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/24/google-br...

To be fair, there aren't "banner ads" on either the Google homepage or the search results pages. Neither are there "crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up". There are definitely ads on the search results pages, and they take too much vertical space IMO, but they're text and small images, not flashing and tacky stuff.

well yes, the genius is that the ads on the google page are virtually indistinguishable from actual results. is that better or worse?
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