Ebay Looking Into Buying AOL?

February 5th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under

Ebay Looking Into Buying AOL?So, apparently everyone is whispering about how eBay (NASDAQ EBAY) might put out a bid to buy Time warner’s AOL (NYSE TWX). Talk about the terrible buy of the century. What does AOL even do anymore? Instant Messenger is the only thing they still have a hold on, and even that is slipping with the recent breakout of social networking chat software.

In any case, it just goes to show you Ebay simply doesn’t learn from its past mistakes. (Skype: Wowza, that was bad.)

The only possible shred of it making any sense would be to buy AOL, integrate Skype into AIM, and then integrate AIM featuring Skype into Ebay.

But again, this would be like taking a 1985 Honda Accord, putting it on top of a 1994 Toyota Camry, and then trying to attach it all to a 1958 Chevy Impala.

In the end, you’re left with a heaping pile of <insert your own metaphor here>.

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There Are 15 Responses So Far. »

  1. Comment by johnbaem on 5 February 2008:

    well i believe this is the stategically planning for them and buying AOL is only to increase the company profile and not only for the purpose of the integrated technology..

    this is normal in business field seems this is how that company will start to boost up back after having one fine shareholders..

  2. Pingback by Cars » Ebay Looking Into Buying AOL? on 5 February 2008:

    […] James Blunts wrote a fantastic post today on “Ebay Looking Into Buying AOL?”Here’s ONLY a quick extractBut again, this would be like taking a 1985 Honda Accord, putting it on top of a 1994 Toyota Camry, and then trying to attach it all to a 1958 Chevy Impala. In the end, you’re left with a heaping pile of . […]

  3. Comment by zhar on 5 February 2008:

    True AOL is a bad company, It should not be bought by anyone with a sane mind, It will die its own death. It is losing every quarter and sooner or later it will be wiped out. Ebay is a smart company, it should start integrating skype with ebay and make it more social, so that users can trust each other.

  4. Comment by saggygenius on 5 February 2008:

    well, if that happens,
    the AIM will be filled with Ebay product ADs .
    & this will give other online shopping companies to bid over AOL

  5. Comment by GuyForum on 6 February 2008:

    Instead of acquiring aol for hefty amount, i feel that ebay should concentrate on developing their own products and improve it, i feel they are going to suffer very badly if this indeed follows thruough.

  6. Comment by akshay on 6 February 2008:

    now the internet war begins and that too big ones…one microsoft bidding yahoo and now this one seems interesting to watch out for outcomes…prices of shares highly depend on them

  7. Comment by richa on 6 February 2008:

    this will surely stiff the internet competition as market is expected to grow about 80 billion by 2010…only major and key players could have large chunks of profit…

  8. Comment by bud on 7 February 2008:

    ebay has skype, they should add more features to this and improve it rather than buying AOL which is already suffering. If ebay wants to buy someone, they should buy amazon or shopzilla.

  9. Comment by Himanshu on 11 February 2008:

    Well i just fail to see the point here.. AOL is dying.. dying bad of cancer and if ebay thinks that it can revive it then to my opinion they are mistaken… as rightly said by James Blunts its like stale bread in a new wrapper…

  10. Comment by Suyash on 11 February 2008:

    I believe that instead of buying crappy old cripples like AOL it should focus on investing more on websites of their own genere like shopzilla etc. but that’s just me though..

  11. Comment by James on 12 February 2008:

    But i have always was thinking that it was going to the other way round, that is aol buying ebay, i am hearing this news here first time that aol is going to buy ebay! But as always only time will tell who will be the winner ultimately!

  12. Comment by Monkey on 12 February 2008:

    Well, Since Ebay has bought Skype it has seen a lot of negative figures in its balance sheets and if it was not able to do any good with Skype then what is the point of going on with another IM service AOL.

  13. Comment by MyRedz on 12 February 2008:

    well i think this move is good for the long-term marketing plans of ebay.Having a site as big as aol definitely benefits both as a whole.but they too have to look at the shareholders demands before planning anything out

  14. Comment by gordon on 13 February 2008:

    This is really a bad idea, AOL is not a take over material. Ebay can’t improve AOL, It does not have anything which has some kind of future. All its technologies are old and stale.

  15. Comment by thinktank on 24 February 2008:

    This is definitely a stupid thing to even CONSIDER. AOL is useless, dead; eBay would be shooting themselves in the foot I think.

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