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Google and Comcast have joined forces and are in talks with Time Warner to buy a piece of America Online in what is likely a move to head off Microsoft according to several people in the know, reports the New York Times (via MarketingVox). Microsoft is seeking a stake in AOL and was reported last month to have entered into talks with Time Warner, which was immediately thereafter approached by Comcast and Google.
The maneuverings seem to be the latest manifestation of that old political adage, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” with AOL’s two big rivals in instant-messaging, Microsoft and Yahoo, having announced yesterday that they would make their instant-messaging services interoperable.
Time Warner wants to sell a minority stake in AOL to increase its stock price and hopes that a reconstituted AOL would sell shares to the public while it remains in control of a large internet company at a time when audiences and advertisers are shifting from traditional media to online.
Google wants to remain the search service on AOL’s various offerings that reach more than 73 million users in the U.S. each month, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, and Comcast wants to gain customers for its high-speed internet service by offering AOL content and marketing to AOL’s dial-up subscribers. Microsoft’s interest in AOL is mainly in expanding its new search business as the best way to counter the Google’s growing influence.
Arbitron has reached a settlement with the State of New York, in a move that will resolve all claims against Arbitron that were alleged in the lawsuit filed against the company by the NY Attorney General relating to the marketing…
Google CEO Eric Schmidt wishes he could “rescue” newspapers, but he doesn’t believe that simply purchasing newspapers would solve their business problems.
In an interview with Fortune, Schmidt says the solution to the problems newspapers are facing lies in integration.…
Angered by a London bus advertisement that sent her to a website where she was told that she was going to hell, to spend all eternity in torment, comedy writer Ariane Sherine decided to launch a counter-campaign.
She began raising…
Apple’s iTunes Store is set to significantly shift its approach to selling songs online, including dropping copying protection (digital rights management, or DRM) and introducing a new pricing plan, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Rather than the standard 99 cents…
Online spending in several key categories, including Sports & Fitness and Video Games, increased and outperformed offline spending during the 2008 holiday season, while overall online and offline spending in other home and luxury-goods categories decreased across the board, according…
Walgreens December sales of $6.1 billion were an increase of 10.8% from $5.5 billion for the same month in 2007, the company announced. Same-store sales rose 4.9%, while comparable store front-end sales increased 0.4%.
Walgreens transactions in comparable stores increased…
