Cooliris loses its chief revenue officer to AOL
Cooliris, the startup that developed a 3-D wall for users to explore images and other online media, lost one of its most notable hires today, when chief revenue officer Shashi Seth joined AOL.
Seth came to Cooliris in June 2008 from Google, where he was in charge of monetizing YouTube. At the time, Seth told GigaOm that the search engine had gotten “a little big.” Now he’s part of a wave of ex-Googlers jumping aboard at… Continue Reading
TC50: AIM opens up; pegs its future on mobile apps
To reclaim some of its old glory and keep up with social networking startups, AOL is opening up its AIM instant messaging service with the latest versions of its chat software and mobile applications today.
The AIM team demonstrated the new apps today at the TechCrunch50 conference in San Francisco. The iPhone app should be live in the App Store today, and the other chat products should be available. on Sept. 22.
The company is honing in… Continue Reading
Roundup: AOL’s new boss, Google’s coming Wave
AOL’s new chief says the company needs to believe in itself — Advertising Age interviews AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, who jumped ship from Google 100 days ago and took on the task of spinning AOL off from Time Warner into a stand-alone entitity. Armstrong will be heading up the creation of the world’s largest display-ad network, Platform A. Armstrong’s take after three months jetting between offices? “A big part of fixing AOL is getting AOL… Continue Reading
Two local startups may help AOL find the road to salvation
As part of Tim Armstrong’s big turnaround plan for AOL, the online media conglomerate he recently became chief executive of, he’s buying two local-focused startups. One is Going, an events organizing site, another is Patch, a local news site.
Armstrong left a senior advertising spot at Google earlier this year, in a bid to restore AOL to the position of market dominance it held earlier this decade. Each acquisition was for around $10 million, according to… Continue Reading
Roundup: AOL spinoff, secret news meeting, and more
Here’s the latest action:
AOL spin-off approved by Time Warner — After AOL’s merger with the media conglomerate in 2000, it’s been, well, a long decade. AllThingsD has more.
Leading newspapers hold secret meeting to discuss charge for content — The Atlantic reports. No word on whether there was an entrance fee.
Social game-maker Playdom hire game veterans — Virtual Worlds News covers.
Hulu Desktop, kinda — “Hulu Desktop simply presents an alternate [user interface] for the site (now with sound effects!) that’s… Continue Reading
Roundup: Real life Twitter, Intel’s EU fine, and more
Here’s the latest action:
European Union could fine Intel up to $1.3 billion — or so some legal experts think.
AOL to spin out of Time Warner — And some executives are spinning out of AOL.
Track swine flu search trends — With this experimental tool from Google.
Satellite imagery company DigitalGlobe focusing on mid-May IPO — Reuters has more.
Google Maps’ data not as clean as interface suggests — Search Engine Land has this scathing take.
Amazon Web Services offers education grants — More on the… Continue Reading
AOL’s new toolbar aims to unite its aging empire with the web
A few months ago I started hearing rumors about some sort of web-wide chat and social networking product that AOL was working on. It promised to tie together AOL’s popular instant messaging service AIM and Bebo, the social network that the conglomerate bought for $850 million a year ago — and restore AOL’s former reputation as an innovative web company. Today, the product has been partially revealed in live testing on AOL country music site… Continue Reading
Can Push Notification force AT&T to rethink SMS fees?
Let me be clear right off the bat: Contrary to what some of you may believe, I do not hate text messaging. What I hate are the ridiculous fees mobile carriers push on us when we use it. These costs are so absurd that a number of times I’ve written about the need for a viable alternative to force carriers to bring the fees down. Now, it looks like we may have one of the… Continue Reading
AOL snags Google’s sales chief for CEO slot
AOL announced today that it has hired away Tim Armstrong, the head of Google’s sales organization, to become the company’s next chairman and chief executive. Armstrong, whose official title at Google was senior vice president of sales in North America and Latin America, has been credited by many with building the search giant’s Goliath online advertising business — and will now try to work the same magic at its faltering peer.
Armstrong will replace chief executive… Continue Reading
AIM beats Apple to fake background notifications on the iPhone
We’ve been waiting for Push Notification, Apple’s solution for enabling notifications without having third-party apps running in the background on the iPhone, for so long now, that consumers have either forgotten about it or are skeptical it will ever come at all. And developers are apparently so sick of waiting that they’re coming up with their own solutions.
AOL’s AIM instant messaging application launched on day one in the App Store back in July of last… Continue Reading
AOL takes one part Bebo, one part AIM, wants to create central lifestreaming service
What does AOL get when it pairs aging instant message service AIM with Bebo, the also-ran social network that it bought for $850 million last spring? A web service that could one day be a main way for people to interact on any web site, the company hopes. Set aside your knee-jerk cynicism about the big tech-media conglomerate trying to innovate, for a moment, because the service is looking better — especially better than what… Continue Reading
Google digs up its AOL warranty, demands a refund for damaged goods
During its earnings call this morning, Time Warner noted that Google has exercised its option to dump its stake in AOL. Time Warner now has two options: pay Google for its 5 percent stake or make AOL its own entity and take it public. The latter ain’t happening.
Time Warner chief financial officer John Martin says the company is reviewing the request, and if it doesn’t try to delay the request, it could buy back Google’s… Continue Reading
The Internet’s jammed with broken links of a last chance Google Drive
Google Drive, GDrive, “My Stuff,” Platypus — these are all names for Google’s online storage service that has been rumored to be in the works since at least 2005. Blogs are always predicting its impending launch, and even the Wall Street Journal matter-of-factly stated well over a year ago that Google was preparing to unveil the service. But the service is still nowhere to be found.
Well, actually, you can probably find it if you work… Continue Reading
Roundup: Balderton’s new fund, Google’s “environmental impact” and more
Here’s the latest action:
Balderton Capital raises $430 million fund to take advantage of downturn — The London-based firm tells the Financial Times that “[p]art of the reason for raising this fund now is to take advantage of the opportunities that this stage of the cycle throws up.”
Delicious creator Joshua Schachter joins Google — Yahoo bought his social bookmarking service, Delicious, in 2005 — but he left in June, citing issues getting anything done at the company. Now… Continue Reading
AOL’s web-wide chat plans for AIM still in Powerpoint
AOL is thinking about launching a service that integrates AIM, its instant message service, into other sites, as we reported earlier this month. However, sources close to the company are saying the plans are still in Powerpoint — AOL has just been showing mock-ups to potential partners.
Conceptually, it’s an interesting idea. The plan could make once-dominant AIM — and Bebo, its recently-purchased social network — more central to the web. The service could let users… Continue Reading
AOL using AIM chat to boost Bebo, challenge Meebo
AOL is working on a new initiative to make its instant message service, AIM, a central social feature to any web site, well-placed sources tell me. Starting next year, a user on a social network might use AIM to create an IM chat list from their friends list on their favorite social network. They could then IM each other without having to use a separate chat application.
Oh wait, what does that remind me of? Ah… Continue Reading
Bebo launches new homepage, its take on lifestreaming
Bebo is launching a big upgrade to its user homepage. The social network is integrating ways to read email and see what friends are doing on other sites in one place. It’s the AOL-owned company’s take on a web trend called “lifestreaming.”
At this point, there’s a wide range of competitors offering lifestreaming services and cross-site integration, from social network Facebook to leading lifestreaming company Friendfeed. Perhaps this redesign will give Bebo a boost. With its… Continue Reading
Forget Microsoft, Miller may make a run at Yahoo himself
So maybe there was a little something to that Times report about the Microsoft-Yahoo deal after all. Former AOL chief executive Jonathan Miller is apparently attempting to raise money to make a run at buying a piece of — or all of — Yahoo, The Wall Street Journal now reports.
Miller, who is said to be talking with private equity and sovereign wealth funds, would need to raise something in the range of $28 to $30… Continue Reading
Roundup: Layoffs hit Revision3, Google Earth on the iPhone and more
Here’s the latest action:
Layoffs hit Revision3 — A number of shows are leaving the online video network or have been canceled.
Google Earth now available for the iPhone – The Google Earth Blog declares that the new iPhone app is “awesome.”
Microsoft opens Surface to third-party developers — The goal is to find the “killer app” for Microsoft’s tabletop computer.
AOL to use Brightcove video player — The move marks a shift in AOL’s strategy, because it has spent the last… Continue Reading
Microsoft’s Ballmer sneezes. Yahoo has tissues. Stock soars.
The market is pretty flat today overall but one stock is surging in early afternoon trading — Yahoo. The stock is up over 15 percent now, and I think we all know why: Microsoft.
That’s right, the company that first made a $44.6 billion, $31-a-share offer to Yahoo at the beginning of this year — only to have it and other slightly better offers spurned by Yahoo — may still have some interest in the Internet… Continue Reading