Apollo Explores Sale of Internet Pioneer AOL (msn.com) 35
An anonymous reader shares a report: Apollo is exploring a sale of early internet darling AOL after receiving inbound interest in the business, according to people familiar with the matter. Any deal could value AOL at around $1.5 billion, the people said. It is also possible the talks won't result in any deal, they cautioned.
Apollo bought AOL in 2021 as part of a $5 billion deal to acquire that business and Yahoo from Verizon. AOL generates around $400 million in annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, the people familiar with the matter said. Its main business lines include software for internet privacy and protection, and the AOL.com website and email domain.
Apollo bought AOL in 2021 as part of a $5 billion deal to acquire that business and Yahoo from Verizon. AOL generates around $400 million in annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, the people familiar with the matter said. Its main business lines include software for internet privacy and protection, and the AOL.com website and email domain.
$400M for AOL (Score:3)
Wow!!!
Just.......WOW!!!!!
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, I'm taking about earnings, not sales price of $1.5B.
I'm impressed that AOL is still earning that kind of money. Wow!!!!
Re: (Score:2)
Let's face it - if you're spending $1.5B for AOL, you're paying $1.5B for a list of email addresses owned by people too thick to figure out how to create a different email account somewhere else.
That's a captive audience that you can spam the shit out of forever... or at least until they keel over from old age; better consult with the actuarials on what single-digit number of years the mean is for that customer base because you know they're all old AF.
Re: $400M for AOL (Score:2)
you know those reports showing ad networks sending all your data to China? well, that's AOL. and now yahoo (which Apollo also bought).
the worst performer ad networks in the planet, but they still get campaigns from apple and other big brands with too much money. so they can participate in reverse bidding (when the site you visit send all your info to hundreds of ad networks to sell an Ad in realtime) which then stores all that data, build your user profile
Re: (Score:3)
yeah. I'm having a difficult time believing that, but then again I don't know what products or services are offered under the AOL brand either.
Last time I paid attention to AOL, it was being annoyed when they switched from 3.5" floppies to CDs for distributing software for their service, because the new medium was no longer reformattable for reuse for whatever I needed it for.
Re: (Score:2)
The CDs were good as coasters, frisbees, and the entertainment value of folding them until they snapped and loudly shattered. Not as financially rewarding as floppies, but good from the standpoint of making fun of AOL.
Re: (Score:2)
Best use was for self-destructing frisbees and microwave entertainment.
Re: (Score:2)
The CDs were good as coasters, frisbees, and the entertainment value of folding them until they snapped and loudly shattered. Not as financially rewarding as floppies, but good from the standpoint of making fun of AOL.
I didn't need more tchotchkes. Putting a CD in the microwave for a few seconds is amusing the first time, possibly even the second or third, but the novelty wears off very quickly.
Re: (Score:2)
The CDs were good as coasters, frisbees, and the entertainment value of folding them until they snapped and loudly shattered. Not as financially rewarding as floppies, but good from the standpoint of making fun of AOL.
Office wall Plinko with push pins.
Re: (Score:2)
spin them up with an angle grinder arbor and let them go and watch them flyyyyy!
Re: $400M for AOL (Score:3)
AOL dial up is shutting down in a couple of weeks.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fhelp.aol.com%2Farticles%2F... [aol.com]
Re: (Score:2)
I can understand that.
What I didn't understand is the shutting down of Buddy Lists, Instant Messaging, and Chat Rooms in recent years.
bought for 5$billion (Score:3)
sell for $1.5 bill 5 years later
????
Profit???!!!
They've been stripped down (Score:2)
There were more divisions of AOL just a few years back, but those have all been spun off into separate companies, so this is a ridiculous amount of money for a very narrow business line.
I learned something today (Score:3)
I honestly did not know that AOL still existed. I'm astonished that it's market value is so high.
I listened to a security guy's podcast yesterday, and he went over why security programs like Norton and Mcafee were useful at one time but are just junk bloatware these days. It was his opinion that Windows Defender is good enough for most things. The same with PC vpn software -- most of them don't do what you think they do. Apparently the security and privacy industries are big scam opportunities.
To be honest, I've been out of that industry long enough that I don't have a feel for the current status. So I note without commenting.
Well... it IS September... (Score:2)
And since AOL gave us the Eternal September, the timing, at least, make sense.
Re: (Score:3)
AOL was the catalyst but since the etiquette pre-Eternal-September was not codified and only enforced through browbeating new users into feeling uncomfortable to get them to comply shunning them if they did not, it was going to happen regardless of what service provider expanded offerings to the general public. It was just that AOL got there first.
I've moderated on forums before. It's a pain. It's thankless at-best, and at-worst one has to respond to schmucks that won't accept that they're out of line an
Re: (Score:2)
I remember attempts to moderate on Usenet, and it really didn't work. It was too decentralized, there was insufficient central authority to enforce or to delegate to moderators, and then the volume of garbage got so bad that it simply wasn't worth it anymore.
Moderation on USENET works fine. Moderated newsgroups require post approval. The only problem there is post volume, but every newsgroup doesn't have to be for everyone.
However, a better plan would have been to give users the tools to filter out the trolls with a web of trust moderation system based on PGP signatures, which could have been added to any newsreader.
AOL Email (Score:3)
Still use my AOL email for some things (through a normal mail client). It's now over 26 years old.
Continuity (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
As of 2014, 2 million people still used AOL for dial up. We forget that some people live in remote areas or simply happy enough with the service to remain a paying customer.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fqz.com%2F342954%2Faol-stil... [qz.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, not everyone wants to go from $5/month to $100/month for internet access.
Re: AOL Email (Score:2)
Pioneer (Score:5, Informative)
I'll bid $100 (Score:2)
One hundred dollar bid, now two—who’ll give me two?
I’ve got one hundred, lookin’ for two hundred now—do I hear two?
Two hundred, two hundred, anybody at two?
Last call—one hundred going once...
One hundred going twice...
SOLD! Right there for one hundred dollars!
Remember when... (Score:5, Informative)
AOL bought Time Warner (and not the other way around)?
When AOL bought CompuServe?
NetScape, MapQuest, TechCrunch, HuffPost, Engadget?
A lot of history there.
AOL was never an Internet pioneer! (Score:3)
People don't seem to know their history when it comes to the online world. The ARPAnet was the foundation for what became the Internet, but in the private sector, we had things called a BBS, Bulletin Board System, where people would dial into a system run by someone else, and you could read and send messages to other users, and also upload or download things. Most of those had a single phone line, some two or three lines, but that was the way things were back in the 1980s.
There were also the "Online Services". CompuServe was the one primarily aimed at business use, you had GEnie, Prodigy, and AOL. None of these were connected to the Internet, they were just their own service in the days of dial-up. In time, being able to send/receive e-mail from the Internet was added, again, AOL was not ON the Internet, but it finally had the ability to send/receive Internet e-mail. Eventually, AOL did connect to the Internet, but AOL was never a pioneer in the field. Being an Internet pioneer would go to companies like Netcom, which was one of the first national Internet service providers back in the 1990s, where the offering really was for people to dial up to be able to get on the Internet.
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty valid point. If *anything*, if AOL had executed a tad more successfully, then we might not even have had widespread adoption of the internet. We'd be all complaining about how AOL has a monopoly, but how else could you imagine a global online network functioning except inside a monopoly? Weirdos would be bringing up that crazy Internet thing that came out of ARPAnet and everyone would laugh about how that would have not possibly worked...
I think if AOL had established 'AOL for University' and 'AOL f
Interesting ties to the Commodore 64 (Score:2)
Back in the early ’90s, it wasn’t a sure thing that Microsoft Windows was going to take over the market, even though they had a clear lead over many of their competitors, thanks to MS-DOS.
In fact, one of the iconic GUI-based experiences of the era, AOL, hedged its bets for a while, creating and maintaining a DOS version of its iconic pseudo-internet software using a graphical user interface platform few were familiar with: GeoWorks.
It was an operating system for an era when it wasn’t even a sure thing we’d have a modem.
And it was absurdly lightweight, something it gained from its earliest form—as GEOS (Graphical Environment Operating System), an operating system option for the Commodore 64.
....
It's actually not an Internet Pioneer (Score:2)
AOL was an online service, kinda a counter-model to the Internet, where you had a centralized "information service" instead of a data network. While on the Internet everybody could, for example, run a webserver, having services on AOL meant having a contract with AOL.
They later did offer Internet access, but that was when the service essentially was already half head. Few people cared about the "AOL" aspects of "AOL" then.
Re: (Score:2)
What?! Internet access via AOL started in early 1995. That was well over a *DECADE* before it was "long dead" as you say.