Google Still Wants AOL
Sarah Perez on October 14th, 2005
Google and Comcast are in discussions to buy a minority stake in Time Warner’s America Online. The deal would combine Time Warner’s programming, Google’s search, and Comcast’s high-speed internet portal. This would definitely raise the stakes against Yahoo! and Microsoft. It could also mean a future of video distribution via the net, if you read between the lines. You know I love Google…but AOL? Not so much. AOL already uses Google for its searches, so where are they going with this? Where’s the benefit? If Google wants in the content business, why can’t they build their own portal? Someone help me out here…
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Simply put: For all that AOL is maligned by us Web hipsters, it’s still 20-odd million subscribers. That’s a huge targeted audience. That’s why it’s sought after. Yes, AOL’s numbers are shrinking (or at best, stagnant). But it’s still a big collection of eyeballs to market towards.
Stop thinking about the technical shortcomings, and think about the business advantages. No one cares how outmoded the very idea of AOL is; they care about how many people still use it.
As far as Google’s specific interest, I recently saw that something like 11 percent of Google’s business came courtesy of its AOL partnership. Nothing to sneeze at… They want to make sure they don’t lose that, so they’re looking to invest and make the possibility of a break remote.
AOL is suddenly a hot commodity, with Yahoo and MS going after it too. I’ll be posting something about this later today.