Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 145 posts

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#91

Post by polemic »

gcb0 wrote: post #74
JoshGlazebrook wrote: post #14

I still remember back in 2000 when we still had AOL. I was eight or nine and I had my own aol account. You could have a dozen or so sub accounts on the main one. And because it was a "kids account" there were chat rooms for kids. Being the lovely kid that I was, of course I went into one and was like "how the f*ck are you all?" Well the kid chat rooms were moderated and our entire AOL account was disabled. My mom had…

when my folks got me a modem, the only thing my father made me understand was the phone bill values... i was 7 or younger. learned all about initialization strings and the minimal about terminal emulation to get to the message and mud games part of some bbs. after that it was downhill.

Heh, good times making ASCII art for a local BBS here :)

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#92

Post by keypusher »

andreyf wrote: post #83
efuquen wrote: post #69

Someone mentioned about trying to find out if their have ever been any other chat services that have really made a lot of money on it's own, and it sparked memory of an acquisition that didn't happen quite that long ago, Microsoft buying Skype in 2011, and here is a good recent article about it: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/30/skype-micr... The bullet point that stands out for me is this: • Problems…

Even if user numbers were comparable, the number of users for WhatsApp is still curving upwards: http://cdn-static.zdnet.com/i/r/story/70/00/026526/screen-sh... I would also argue that being installed and used on mobile devices is more valuable than being installed on a desktop is.

They already have 400 million users, and their growth might continue. But there are only 7 billion people on earth, they are running out of room to prove that valuation. Even if they literally sign up every single person on earth, that's still more than a few dollars per person in revenue required to make the $20 billion valuation worthwhile.

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#93

Post by Kiro »

yarone wrote: post #87
alaskamiller wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To contextualize requires relativity. ICQ in 1999 had about 45 million users. There were only 248 million internet users back in 1999. That's 18% of mostly international users. AOL was optimistic. So much so this is the actual response when they beat the street during their earning reports. "(ICQ is) growing like a weed," said AOL President Bob Pittman. "Monetizing it" will be "relatively easy," he added. WhatsApp ha…

I win with 104006. Was offered job as employee #1. Didn't take the offer. I was 15 y/o.

Are you serious?

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#96

Post by keypusher »

corresation wrote: post #78
MichaelGG wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can call a P/E of 800+ "very profitable"? Making $20M a year profit is no small thing at all, and I'm sure if it was bought for a billion, you'd see far less comments on the subject.

It makes $20 million in revenue . I've read that they're profitable, but never the number.

32 employees * 100,000 = 3.2 million Let's say a million a year for office space and another million for infrastructure and bandwidth, seems like they were fairly profitable for what they had. No idea how Facebook plans to recoup $20 billion though.

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#97

Post by nisa »

elektronaut wrote: post #84
gcb0 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when my folks got me a modem, the only thing my father made me understand was the phone bill values... i was 7 or younger. learned all about initialization strings and the minimal about terminal emulation to get to the message and mud games part of some bbs. after that it was downhill.

I developed a serious internet addiction when I was a teenager. My parents were working class and struggling to make ends meet, and I was always dreading the day the phone bill arrived. After a couple of confiscated modems (I had a secret backup box of old 28.8s), I realized I could just trade my web skills for money and pay the bills myself. I guess that's what I've been doing since.

This sounds pretty similar to my experience. Confiscated modems rang a bell! I've also dreaded the day the phone bill came. A friend and me used all kinds of workarounds: Free AOL CDs, Toll Free Dailup numbers where the banking data was not validated in time... got serious trouble (rightly so) for that. Not much later I got a small job and we had 64k ISDN there, later at that time insanely fast DSL 384k. Learned Linux at age 13, Debian 1.3, Redhat 5, I now make a living of that... The addiction is still there, through.

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#98

Post by skrebbel »

Kiro wrote: post #93
yarone wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I win with 104006. Was offered job as employee #1. Didn't take the offer. I was 15 y/o.

Are you serious?

It surprises you? Pretty big chance that a programmer once offered an ICQ job is on HN these days and would comment in a thread about the Mirabilis purchase.

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#100

Post by Kiro »

skrebbel wrote: post #98
Kiro wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious?

It surprises you? Pretty big chance that a programmer once offered an ICQ job is on HN these days and would comment in a thread about the Mirabilis purchase.

No, not that surprising but I want to know more. It just sounded so casual.
Post reply on HN