That Phantom Yahoo Truck Near AOL HQ
Since we relayed our erroneous report this morning that the Yahoo-AOL merger was a done deal, readers have been sharing theories about the phantom "Yahoo truck" our source says was spotted near Dulles HQ. (A senior Time Warner source says Yahoo and AOL are still talking but a deal is "not imminent.")
One popular theory is that it was one of those rolling billboard trucks that Yahoo occasionally uses to advertise itself (we've seen them!)
Another is that the report was started by this picture, which was published in the WaPo more than a year ago:
And an AOL reader was kind enough to forward this picture, which was reportedly taken this morning and plastered on an AOL co-worker's door:
Know the real story? Let us know! hblodget@alleyinsider.com
See Also: Yahoo-AOL Merger NOT a Done Deal, Says Time Warner Source
And does Yahoo really pay to have a big rig roll around -- hopefully they're actually carrying cargo, not just burning up gas.
A great mystery either way.
WTF are they doing with their $. i'd like to see an itemized CapEx addendum w/the Q3 earnings!
Yeah, Yahoo! should buy those losers. Sheesh.
That said, there are sightings of these Yahoo! trucks weekly around Sterling/Ashburn. There are also all kinds of *secret* data centers housing credit card, government and other information in highly secure bunkers.
Ah, fun times in Loudoun. Keep digging SAI.
This is likely the point isn't it? Bewkes promised a while back he'd publish the breakout of the impact of dialup subscriber traffic on AOL's content business. Then he didn't. Miller, who'd know, was blocked from the Y board for some reason. This has always been the area where the microscope needs to be focused by a prospective AOL purchaser.
Rather than urging Yang not to pay more than $6B (ex access) you should be urging him to not pay more than a multiple of earnings for the ad bus after excluding dialup subscriber clicks from those earnings. The Y board need to first arrive in a position where they have thoroughly and diligently exposed and comprehended the value of AOL’s ad business, excluding the impact of dialup subscriber traffic on that ad business, & then pay a reasonable multiple for that in a transaction excluding access, and they need to separately expose that value first even in a transaction including access subscribers. If they don’t, and they overpay as a result, then they should be held accountable to Y shareholders.
yes, your job is at stake. You work for a company that is being run into the ground through management incompetence.
When they have completely decimated the company, there will be no jobs left.
Therefore your job, like all other jobs there, is at stake.
I can't vouch for the second picture though - except to say that many tech companies have server farms and small data centers around Sterling/Ashburn (I work for one!), and people move hardware equipment all the time. - NJG
Also, the access business is actually starting to stabilize. It will still shrink, but there are some folks on there (like me) who will never give up dial-up completely--either because they're lazy or because they need a backup.
I think the media and ad business itself might be worth about 3X revenue, possibly slightly more depending on how much cost could be taken out of it.
"I think the media and ad business itself might be worth about 3X revenue"
Do you agree in principle that if we’re talking about just the media and ad business that that should be after having first deducted subscriber ad clicks from that revenue?
That'll give closer to $3B ex access than your $6B.
The fact that they could buy it all just smudges the issue of how to arrive at a value of each of the two parts. TWX is probably skilled at smudging the issue. Y needs to be able to demonstrate to shareholders, that before a deal was struck they had diligently unraveled these issues and not overpaid, otherwise they should face shareholder action.
If you arrive at a value for the media & ad bus first, then separately value access, it’s most unlikely (if we had sight of what traffic goes where, which of course helpfully for TWX, the public doesn’t) that you’d get to anything like a reasonable value of $8-10B for the whole.
Your methodology of 3 X (apparently) ALL the ad revenue is helping to smudge the issue. As is your saying that it doesn’t matter anyway because if they do a deal it’ll probably be for the whole lot. But like you say it may all be about price. Though you might not be able to offer up a figure without knowing what impact subscriber traffic has on the ad bus. revenue, you can propose the right methodology for arriving at a figure.
توبيكات - مسجات - العاب - الفهرس
I worked there for almost a decade as well. A HUGE hint that cuts are coming starts when management cannot give an answer. You'll KNOW the axe is going to fall if your boss starts asking you questions about whether there are any other opportunities at AOL you'd like to try out, or if you're looking at another industry.
Let's put the facts together. The economy is in a significant decline right now. People are struggling, and given this anyone that is still foolish enough to pay for AOL will more than likely cut their service. Assuming AOL is not continuing illegal business practice, as they did for so long, in keeping accounts that should really have been canceled.
The advertisement strategy by AOL/Platform A is a complete scam. Just like all of the rest of AOLs metric management policies, they will skew and ignore any data that does not synch up with a "good story." In reality, AOL management is amazingly good at lying indirectly. If you really wanted to look at Platform As success, it should be measured in "number of ad clicks" as it correlates to "time on advertised web page," or even better as add clicks correlate to sales. I'm betting the scaling is absolutely pathetic.
I personally, along with many others, tried to synch up management with a sound strategy and accurate methods to measure whether the business was succesful in that strategy. Management is not interested in these discussions, because they know in that thick skull that the results would how poor performance and more than likely a continued degradation in performance.
The short of the long is this. If you still work at AOL, you are putting yourself at significant risk. The longer you are there, the less the chance is that you're even going to get a decent severance package. You would be wise to put in the time now to find another opportunity before you are cut at Christmas time as I watched thousands of others endure. And honestly, the job market knows what type of "project manager" or "program manager" exists at AOL. They haven't ever managed a budget, they have no idea what PMBOK is or what PMLC/SDLC processes are, and they have never had to formally pull together a fully developed project plan. The ideas from management are stale at best, and offer few glimmers of hope.
Work on your resume, start networking, take some classes that will reinforce your experience, and say good bye to AOL. Don't let that ship drag you to the bottom of that ocean of despair.
AOL is desperate.
stupid fux