FirstAdopter.com

Microsoft vs. Google/Comcast for AOL

Not much news today. I'll just ramble on the AOL news of late. The Wall Street Journal is posting up a new AOL joint venture or buy-out speculation almost every day now. Basically Google found out Microsoft was talking to Time Warner about a MSN and AOL joint venture. The main catch being AOL must dump Google for search ads and use Microsoft's engine.

Google is now courting Time Warner big-time with either a $5 billion stake in the AOL portal or a joint buy-out with wing-man Comcast cable. The last thing Google wants to happen is let Microsoft come in and take away the AOL business by using its cash. Google now has over $7 billion cash, so it can now push the big bully back.

The winner in all of this is Time Warner and AOL of course. Frankly however if you ever visit AOL.com these days, other than AOL dial-up users who are forced to go there as their default page, it is pretty useless and the flash ads that go across the page to distract you are VERY annoying. AOL is in decline and nothing is going to stop that.