Here is the letter AOL CEO Randy Falco has penned to the entire staff about its layoffs of 10 percent of its workforce–or 700 people–and other cost cuts, which the online service is announcing today.
“We’re at a pivotal point in AOL’s transformation, and need to be even more strategically focused and operationally efficient as we weather the economic storm,” wrote Falco, in part, about the move.
Gone, Tim Tuttle of Truveo. Gone, the Birches of Bebo. Gone, Dave Morgan of Tacoda. Gone, many Quigos.
One of the more interesting little problems that AOL has had over the last few years, in regards to its acquisition of hot Internet companies, has been that it is situated deep in the bowels of the Time [...]
After its AOL division paid out an insane $850 million for social networking site Bebo yesterday, one had to wonder if the true digital legacy of Time Warner will be as the perpetual gravy train for legions of Web players.
It certainly seems that way from the original AOL execs who “merged” their company with Time Warner in 2000 and cashed out at the peak right after the deal to the series of ad networking startup entrepreneurs who got acquired, took their payouts and skidaddled right on through to the two founders of Bebo–Michael and Xochi Birch–who didn’t even stay long enough for a latte after grabbing their chunk of the payday Time Warner was handing out in crisp bank notes for the social networking site they founded.
In an interesting move, AOL made its second acquisition in a week by buying Yedda, an Israeli question-and-answer service with social elements.
The price for the start-up, founded in 2006, was not disclosed, although it recently raised $2.5 million. Last week, AOL confirmed it has bought the Quigo ad network at a price tag of upward [...]
As expected, from a story we broke in BoomTown more than a week ago, AOL confirmed it has bought the Israeli content-targeting ad network Quigo.
The sale price, said sources, was a lofty $300 million, around what Yahoo paid for data analytics ad network BlueLithium in September.
Well, it’s probably a good thing for AOL as it [...]
It’s obvious at this point that acquisition deals are to Web 2.0 start-ups as IPOs were to Web 1.0 ones.
As far as bubbles go, I suppose that’s fine, since average investors are safe from the machinations of investment bankers and venture capitalists this time and the only ones at risk are the big companies overpaying [...]
So there is a lot of swirl out there about a spate of companies and their supposed plans.
In the interest of time-saving, we will group them all here in one easy list that you can clip and save.
DEALS AFOOT?:
Yes, there is always a lot of sniffing around out there, especially given that a lot of [...]
Kara Swisher started covering digital issues for The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau in 1997 and also wrote the BoomTown column about the sector. With Walt Mossberg, she co-produces and co-hosts D: All Things Digital, a major high-tech and media conference.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
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