Categories: Microsoft

A Thought For Time Warner Regarding AOL: Keep The Access Business And Sell Everything Else

Posted by: Jon Fine on August 06

There is now a case to be made for Time Warner to hold onto AOL’s dial-up subscriber business and sell the troubled online unit’s advertising and content businesses. As they...

Former Microsoft Media Exec Does Not Think Too Highly Of Recently Announced Company Changes

Posted by: Jon Fine on July 30

Had an email exchange late last week with a former Microsoft executive familiar with the company's media operations, and I asked said former exec's opinion on the reorganization apparently spurred...

AOL: Now What? A Few Wisecracks And A Few Notions

Posted by: Jon Fine on June 27

AOL: A neverending pinata party for those who write about such things; a gremlin that never stops kicking your shinbones for those running Time Warner....

Yahoo-Google's Deal Is Done, But The Next Thing . . .

Posted by: Jon Fine on June 12

. . . is AOL-Microsoft. Given the latest, how long before some AOL-Microsoft deal gets announced, and will it just be for search? (Seriously. I’m asking. Let me know...

Story/Software Tension Sighted In Potential Deal For Yahoo!

Posted by: Jon Fine on April 11

An unnamed source is buried deep in the big Wall Street Journal piece today, the one detailing some backroom manuevers in the whole Google/News Corp/AOL/Microsoft group-grope-cum-competition for Yahoo. Said source...

More On Culture Clashes Between Software And Story

Posted by: Jon Fine on April 04

This week’s column sought to plumb the tensions inherent when tech outfits run media companies, and also to revisit the chafing that's occuring between traditional media companies and an ad-networked...

More On Microsoft-Yahoo

Posted by: Jon Fine on February 01

In this video debate, my BusinessWeek colleague Catherine Holahan and I square off on the Microsoft-Yahoo deal. She's the one bravely arguing against my bearish view. I'm the one whose...

So Microsoft And Yahoo Walk Into A Bar . . .

Posted by: Jon Fine on February 01

Ah, Microsoft-Yahoo. It's truly touching to me how companies are forever believing that if you mate two dogs, you can make a pony....

The Weather Channel Sale Scenario I'd Really Like To See

Posted by: Jon Fine on January 03

Google buys it. Seriously....

Will Google Own Content in 2010?

Posted by: Jon Fine on November 23

This week’s column is about what some execs perceive as a competition among the big players in online advertising and online ad networks—yes,: AOL, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo-- for quality traffic,...

The Piddling $15 Billion Valuation That The Microsoft Deal Looped 'Round Facebook's Neck

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 24

Is it really that awful for a company as rich as Microsoft to pay $240 million to lock up the ad inventory on Facebook? This is a serious question. Microsoft...

Web 2.0 Conference: A Calm Metaphor, Delivered Calmly, From Microsoft's Steve Ballmer

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 18

"No! Absolutely not! I would [want to] say, ‘hey, you just turned 3 years old and we got you playing basketball with the 12 year olds! You’ve got all the...

Web 2.0 Conference: Microsoft Exec Quietly Micturates On The Entire Value Proposition of Search Advertising

Posted by: Jon Fine on October 18

“It’s not perfect . . . We unduly give the last transaction credit . . . It doesn’t account for the TV ad” that a consumer might see shortly before...

MicrosoftGoogleFacebook Pile-up

Posted by: Jon Fine on September 25

The excellent and exhaustive piece in the Wall Street Journal spends a lotta time focusing on the travails of Microsoft's media and advertising operations. Should this, by chance, point you...