Yahoo and AOL: Yaolhoo?
- TAGS:AOL, Time Warner, Yahoo, yaolhoo
- IT TOPICS:Internet, Networking
It looks like Yahoo is going to start meeting with Time Warner again to talk about a buy-out, according to the Financial Times. This deal would just move AOL's Internet business and some media assets over to Yahoo. Not sure what that means for the rest of the company, including all the AOL discs still on shelves at Wal-Mart. It would seriously strengthen Yahoo in terms of just raw customers. It's an interesting leak, since Yahoo is set to unveil a brand new home page design tomorrow.
I think it is a smart move. We know now that Microsoft was mostly interested in the raw page views that Yahoo enjoys. Yahoo.com is the most visited Web site on the Web, and adding a whole slew of AOL users will only strengthen the brand. In a few lines of code, I imagine Yahoo could port every one of the millions of users who still have an @aol.com account, including those who use AOL IM (once they get access to those AOL accounts). Remember that there are just three main IM providers: AOL, Yahoo, and MSN. Combining the first two would be a major strike against Microsoft.
I also think Yahoo needs to focus on their strengths, or I should say strength: they have many users locked into their services, so AOL just gives them even more leverage.
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