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Verizon to Buy AOL for $4.4B

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Re: Verizon to Buy AOL for $4.4B

#101

Post by MarkMc »

aylons wrote: post #80
darklajid wrote: post #58

Today I learned that WhatsApp is 5 times more valuable than AOL - and I never understood either of these companies' market.. Interesting though - that company 'felt' like a giant when I seriously got into using the web and although the article seems to imply that the operations of AOL continue (using the AOL brand?) it's fascinating to see such a company being swallowed.

Sorry, but why do you believe WhatsApp is overvalued? They have an incredible mindshare, it is the only app (besides Facebook), that I see moms and grandmas using on a daily basis. Heck, my mom talk to me mostly through it. She evens send me emoticons, pictures and voice notes!

Because on average they only make about $0.05 per user per year [1]. I think they will struggle to grow that figure because messaging apps have very little lock-in. My friend John doesn't want to pay $1 to get WhatsApp? No problem - we can just use Telegram instead.

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/28/whatsapp-revenue/

Re: Verizon to Buy AOL for $4.4B

#102

Post by wpietri »

steego wrote: post #81
67726e wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No the commenter you're asking, but I've never had a constructive conversation with "those types" - the kind who go out of their way to talk about getting laid off from a tech company. Of all the ones I've spoken with, it followed the pattern of "BigCo outsourced jobs to those darn Foreigners, and I got laid off, and it will happen to you too!". In particular I worked with a former DBA for IBM at a grocery store in h…

> What I never heard was any constructive career advice, or any details other than the outsourcing and cheap foreigners. I don't think the purpose of their tirade was to provide you with career advice. It sounds like they were bitter that they invested time and energy in their career and they were resentful of managers replacing them with an option that seemed cheaper. They probably grew up in a time where you could…

Yeah, I have had a number of reasonable conversations like this with people.

For a lot of people, I think part of the purpose of the conversation is offering a warning (combined with a bit of venting). That they aren't explicitly saying, "And the moral of the story is..." doesn't mean there isn't something that we can't learn from it.

Re: Verizon to Buy AOL for $4.4B

#103

Post by mikeash »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #26
jenius wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this is a perfect reason why this is a bad investment. Anyone who is still subscribed to AOL dialup is honestly probably a senior citizen or technology-illiterate. AOL is not even marketing their dialup service anymore. These people over time will slowly decline until those 2 million eventually hit zero. In fact, you can clearly see the nearly exponential downward trend right on the article you linked. Th…

A significant number of AOL dialup customers are living in rural areas where broadband is just not available [1]. [1] http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/neighbors-still-u...

Even if there's good reason to use it, there's no potential for growth. The only way this can go is down. It's pretty much going to be a race to recoup the investment before all these rural areas are covered by cellular (even 2G would be faster than dialup!) or satellite internet becomes cheap enough.

Re: Verizon to Buy AOL for $4.4B

#104

Post by darkstar999 »

huskyr wrote: post #15

For those who are wondering why this might be a good investment: AOL still has 2 million (!) dialup subscribers that fork over $20 a month. http://qz.com/401567/more-than-2-million-american-homes-are-...

But they definitely aren't being acquired for that reason.

Re: Verizon to Buy AOL for $4.4B

#105

Post by higherpurpose »

georgeott wrote: post #77
tootie wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AOL might be the ultimate company that missed the boat. They practically owned the internet in America in the 90s and just let the whole thing get away. They had pole position to be Google+Facebook at once.

They owned a closed "Walled Garden" version of the internet. Once the open internet took off, AOL was doomed.

Isn't that what Facebook does now?

Re: Verizon to Buy AOL for $4.4B

#106

Post by darklajid »

aylons wrote: post #80
darklajid wrote: post #58

Today I learned that WhatsApp is 5 times more valuable than AOL - and I never understood either of these companies' market.. Interesting though - that company 'felt' like a giant when I seriously got into using the web and although the article seems to imply that the operations of AOL continue (using the AOL brand?) it's fascinating to see such a company being swallowed.

Sorry, but why do you believe WhatsApp is overvalued? They have an incredible mindshare, it is the only app (besides Facebook), that I see moms and grandmas using on a daily basis. Heck, my mom talk to me mostly through it. She evens send me emoticons, pictures and voice notes!

It's .. an IM app (and arguably it wasn't a good one/a broken one for quite a while). Like AOL offered? ICQ? MSN? Okay, all dead.

Xmpp? Skype? Lync? Hangout? Telegram? TextSecure? etc. etc. I'm sure I forgot lots of somewhat sensible/popular options.

Basically it's not doing a lot, there are lots of alternatives, I see no way to keep users - or make them pay anything. I mean, I guess they pay with their privacy and/or first-born now that FB owns WhatsApp, but .. I - this is just me, my opinion - fail to see the point.

Plus, I said that I - again, as in me personally - don't understand these companies and what they offer. No need to agree ofc. I haven't been an AOL user, I don't have a FB account or a WhatsApp account. My mom has no smart phone. My dad doesn't use WhatsApp as far as I know. Last but not least: Why would I want to get emoticons(?) or voice notes(??) from my mom? The former is .. useless. The latter? We use my smart _phone_ as a phone for that.

I guess if you don't understand the value something brings to the table, everything is overvalued. I don't understand the value of smart watches. I don't understand the pay grade of football (as in, soccer) players. That doesn't mean that I want to slight the things I mention (or could add to the list), it's just that I am unable to understand these valuations. To see the value, you .. need to find value in something?

Re: Verizon to Buy AOL for $4.4B

#107

Post by basch »

huskyr wrote: post #15

For those who are wondering why this might be a good investment: AOL still has 2 million (!) dialup subscribers that fork over $20 a month. http://qz.com/401567/more-than-2-million-american-homes-are-...

I doubt it was for the subscribers. Look at AOL's recent acquisitions in the last 10 years.

Video: StudioNow, 5Min Media, GoViral, Vidible

News: Weblogs, TechCrunch, The Huffington Post

Marketing: Lightningcast, Third Screen Media, AdTech, Tacoda, Quigo, buy.at, Pictela, gdgt, Adap.tv, Convertro, Gravity

One by AOL sunset Gravity, Pictela, ADTECH, Adap.tv, AdLearn, and Convertro (along with subproducts like Adap.tv Marketplace, and AOL's native data platform) into one product. One by AOL is a HUGE product. http://corp.aol.com/2015/04/14/aol-launches-one-by-aol/

Re: Verizon to Buy AOL for $4.4B

#108

Post by tjbiddle »

epmatsw wrote: post #84
aylons wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but why do you believe WhatsApp is overvalued? They have an incredible mindshare, it is the only app (besides Facebook), that I see moms and grandmas using on a daily basis. Heck, my mom talk to me mostly through it. She evens send me emoticons, pictures and voice notes!

I've never seen a person in the US actually use WhatsApp to talk to another person in the US. I used to occasionally see someone use it to talk to friends who were traveling abroad, but that's mostly been replaced by iMessage or Hangouts at this point.

You answered your own question: In the US.

WhatsApp is huge outside of the US. If memory serves correctly, SMS has always been expensive and MMS never really took off - once the data messaging platform came to be WhatsApp really served that market and has done well because of it.

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