Of course this is mostly to keep permanently keep them as an advertising customer (AOL is the biggest customer of Google)... http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/051216/media_timewarner_google.html Microsoft has been trying to woo AOL away from Google for advertising, so I'm sure Ballmer and Gates aren't terribly happy today.
So Google get to keep the AOL search contract then. This was always going to be the wildcard IMO. Had MSN got the contract then it would have catapulted them forward, and sent Google spiralling backwards at a rate of knotts. Smart move by google IMO
My concern would be if they had to make a sweet deal to AOL to keep the business they might reduce payouts to other publishers in order to make up the difference.
I think it will be nice to keep AOL with Google. We will just have to wait to see what happens with payouts.
Nope... only thing it does is secure AOL as a continuing Google customer going forward. AOL is by far Google's biggest customer (generating $420M in revenue for Google in the first 9 months of this year).
It's kind of a win-win for me, but I think I would have rather had MSN win the AOL battle. I'm an investor in Google, but my sites rank better in MSN. By my (rough) calculations, adding AOL would have almost doubled MSN's share of the search market. That woulda been a nice revenue booster for those of us that are relatively new to the publishing game.
I thought AOL was switching to yahoo's paid listings? Wasn't that reported a few months ago? Or was that just talk?
To play the Debil Dont forget Microsoft has A LOT BIGGER pockets than Google. If Mr. Gates wants AOL he can outbid Google easy. I believe that if MS believes that AOL is the swing for the search engine he would outbid Google.
Agreed... AOL certainly isn't a "must have" for text ad success (although it helps). Ultimately the winner is going to be whoever can build the best mouse trap. Google is certainly winning at this point with Yahoo a (very) distant 2nd IMO.
Totally have to agree with you their Las Vegas... If Billy Gates wants it bad enough or by chance thinks he cant conquer without it, he would buy it. There is no way google can compete with MS. But their is still the possibility that gates was outsmarted. Microsoft according to the report was offering AOL incentives over a few years where as Google came out and slapped the $1B price tag on it in cash.. Any company struggling as AOL is would rather have 1B in cash over a having a few 100m a yr. Just makes me wonder if billy gates isnt going to slap something on the table to make aol drop the talks with G,,, since he does have all day monday and tuesday to write a check. Or if he is going to start taking more agressive measures to get their adsense rivalry in check I just want MS to get a pub network to rival that of G $$$$$$ hear hear$$$$$$$
They will, regardless if they have AOL as a customer. I'm a big fan of competition... it only makes the existing things better in order to compete. I'll be glad when Google, Yahoo and MSN all have their advertising systems up and running and out of beta.
my thought exactly shawn,, competition will make the SE value the publishers more,, as I get some sense of this now that yahoo released its beta... theirs a lot of talks on both sides of the fence.. some for yahoo some for google... I think things will really heat up once Yahoo starts adding more publishers and relevant ads. Even here we can read a lot of people ecstatic with yahoo.. all yahoo is doing is releasing some of the chokehold google has had,, I am eagerly watching for MS to come in and make a Lethal Swoop. I ohh so love competition!!
I wonder what else this will initiate! Google and Advertising.com (owned by AOL) could jointly dominate the online CPM and CPC advertising industry.
well i think it is all about the deepest pockets and we all know who has the biggest! If billy gates thought it would be so important to secure that small stake in AOL, he would bury all offers google could throw. Say G makes 1Billion a yr from AOL, and say they give it a life expectancy of this continued income 5-10 years,, and they make a max offer of 5-10 billion,,, bill gates could match that offer with his rainy day account,,, i do not think that google will dominate this market for long,, the other companies may have some catching up to do,, but I dont think MS or Yahoo will really let them make all the strong moves with them just standing on the sidelines watching their future income streams being stripped away.. 2006 I think will be a good year for publishers,, as the big 3 will all be in on the action,, and more competition means better value placed on us website owners