E-Commerce Blog

Time Warner reported Q3 profits that beat Wall Street expectations, even as its AOL online unit continued to weigh down the company with a 6 percent decline in advertising revenue. The media conglomerate saw growth in its cable-access and cable-network businesses. However, its Time Inc. magazine unit showed weakness. Revenue fell 17 percent in the AOL unit. And revenue fell 9 percent at the Warner Bros. movie division despite the high-profile theatrical release of the Batman sequel “The Dark Knight.”

Excerpt from:
Time Warner Posts Healthy Q3 Profit Despite Ailing AOL

Search engine giant Google could see a significant write-down in its $1 billion investment in AOL, the company revealed. “We believe our investment in AOL may be impaired,” it says in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. “There can be no assurance that impairment charges will not be required in the future and any such amounts may be material.” AOL is owned by Time Warner. Google made the investment in AOL in December 2005.

Read the rest here:
Google Expects to Take a Loss on AOL Stake

AOL splashes images of Bollywood celebrities on its new home page for India. MySpace accepts sign-ups from mobile phones in Japan. Google departs from its customarily spartan home page and peppers its Korean site with colorful, animated icons. As major U.S. Internet companies stake their ground abroad in anticipation of the next billion people coming online — and the advertising revenue they might generate — the flags they are planting aren’t the Stars and Stripes.

More:
Global Expansion With a Twist of Local Flavor

AOL is shutting three data storage services, including one of the Internet’s earliest photo-sharing sites, as it seeks to cut costs and focus resources on its advertising opportunities. AOL Pictures, the year-old media-sharing site BlueString and the online backup service Xdrive will likely shut down by year’s end, though the company is looking to sell at least Xdrive, which AOL bought in 2005 for an undisclosed fee. Company officials denied speculation Friday that the closures were meant to prime AOL for a sale.

Credit:
AOL’s Makeover Moves: Priming Itself for a Sale?

Executives from Microsoft and Time Warner’s AOL are trying to advance discussions on a possible combination that could give the software maker an alternative to a deal with Yahoo, a newspaper reported Wednesday. Word of a meeting follows a breakdown in negotiations between Microsoft and Yahoo over the weekend, one that led activist investor Carl Icahn to step up efforts Monday to replace Yahoo’s board in an Aug. 1 shareholder vote. AOL has been in continual discussions with both Yahoo and Microsoft, and previous talks led Google to buy a 5 percent stake in AOL for $1 billion in 2005.

Source:
Microsoft Asks AOL to Dance