Yes - I know that it's early in the year, but apparently they pulled the supreme technological boner.
Two years ago, they spent $850m to acquire Bebo as they were interesting in using the Bebo technology to beef up their Instant Messaging presence.
A scant 24 months later and AOL states that it is not economically feasible to enhance Bebo to the extent that they feel they could make a profit.
"Bebo, unfortunately, is a business that has been declining and, as a result, would require significant investment in order to compete in the competitive social networking space."
Umm...really? Did no-one actually do this type of analysis before making the purchase?
I'm guessing that someone in AOL Mergers and Aquisitions might have a few questions to answer.
Hmm. Is it possible they just wanted to bury the competition (i.e. buy them and just dissolve them - teamed with some flimsy excuse - so they don't become a problem later, when they may release their own equivalent)?
ReplyDeleteI'm not familiar with AOL's existing tools or technologies (and OK, I'm the suspicious type), but it sounds like a defensive move to me... If you can't beat them, buy and destroy them. :) Time will tell.
Yah - could be. But geesh - to spend that type of dineros? I don't know though, from reading the article, it sounded like the original AOL intent was to use Bebo as their splash into the pond, but you could be right.
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