AOL Takes Over Majority of Microsoft’s Ad Business, Swaps Google Search for Bing | Hacker News Reader

AOL Takes Over Majority of Microsoft’s Ad Business, Swaps Google Search for Bing

blogs.wsj.com

MSFT isn't out of the ad business. They are keeping Bing and likely to make some interesting new ad units that involve Cortana.

Getting out of display media for them is smart. Fundamentally they are a software company and there are already players that sell media better than they can. It isn't a software problem, it's about building sales relationships with media agencies.

A streamlined P&L and staffing strategy will let them focus on making a developer-centric product company. They will still make plenty of ad money, but don't have to staff for it.

The question is whether this deal is about getting out of display advertising for Microsoft, or simply an effort to push Bing in exchange for the less performing advertising units. AOL owns a ton of traffic, technically it's a big win for Bing.

I'm just praying it doesn't result in all of the fun that was had when the Microsoft Yahoo Search Alliance came about.

Anyone who had to deal with the billing headaches at a search agency <raises hand> does not look fondly at that time.

I wonder what this will do to Search Partner Network performance for AdWords customers. AOL represented one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) search partners.

The Search Partner Network is one of the few areas of AdWords that is still a black box wrt placement-level performance (unlike the GDN). Previously the only way to get visibility into the AOL portion of it was to run directly with AOL using AOL's licensed version of the AdWords UI, but with some minor differences in how you used it.

If the biggest volume driver of Search Partner volume goes >poof< I'd expect that to noticeably impact performance for Search Partner traffic. Would love an official comment from Google on this here, on their blog, or through industry pubs like SearchEngineLand.

My first reaction was: Horizontal and vertical alliances (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period#Horizont...)

Verizon now owns AOL, AOL (Verizon) now has major advertising business, Microsoft gains additional search share... Google's weight in this business has definitely managed to create some strange alliances against it.

Microsoft choose to sell it all today?

Microsoft's fiscal year ends tomorrow, so it looks like they're balancing things out.

> ... it looks like they're balancing things out.

Or throwing things out?

This is sad if we go by what happens on AdSonar. Lots and lots of fake bot traffic. Microsoft seemed serious about tackling the problem and were good about issuing refunds for fraudulent clicks. Not so AOL, Adsonar, Huffpo and all the properties in their network.

If the bot traffic is factored into the price, what does it matter?

Bob Lord of AOL used to be CEO of Razorfish, sibling company to Atlas which was acquired by Microsoft in 2009 or so to kick start their ad business. When it flubbed they took a huge write down and just sold it back to Bob Lord.

They sold Atlas to Facebook, no?

Microsoft is quitting from Internet Business？It also sold part of map business to Uber

I'm gonna guess that Google or Bing over AOL's dialup is still awful.

Well Verizon (DSL, fiber-optic) bought AOL out recently.

So Verizon just took over Microsoft's ad business?

Display ad business, yes.

Any DSL/landline assets they obtained from AOL are just going to be dumped like the rest of their non-wireless subs. They wan't everyone to move over to their far more profitable wireless business with overage fees.

I know their dialup service provides lotsa LOLs, but that is not AOL's actual business.

Strangely, dial-up is their actual business. Most of Aol's profits come from their remaining 2.2 million subscribers, still sending in about $20 per month.[1] That's half a billion dollars a year. The average Aol user has been a customer for 14 years.

Their attempted pivot into advertising and content has not done well.[2] Aol had a big layoff in advertising sales late last year. (Not good news if you're a Microsoft ad sales employee being sold to Aol.)

[1] http://recode.net/2014/08/06/aols-amazing-inexplicable-money... [2] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/08/us-aol-results-idU...

So remember that the next time you write a simple, clean web page with a megabyte of javascript and css and other assets: there are still millions of people on a 56k dialup connection who are going to have to spend 2 minutes downloading it.

I've long thought that Microsoft should sell off the Bing business - I recognize that they gain benefits from Bing, but it is fundamentally a different business that they have shown no little ability to capitalize on for a long, long time.

>>Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella, who has been in his post for 17 months, has made clear–including in an employee memo last week–that Microsoft needs to concentrate on technology areas where it has the biggest opportunities for success, and make “tough choices” in fringe areas.

So instead of layoffs, they're just selling their employees*?

(Uber deal): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9799997

Do you have a point at all with your comment?

You say that in a disparaging way, but this is capitalism at it's finest. People and IP are moving to where they're more productive.

I'm sure it's jarring to the employees involved, but not nearly as emotionally and financially draining as knowing that layoffs are coming and scrambling for a job... at the same time as 1,200 other people with similar qualifications.

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