A new executive team at MySpace is trying to reignite the brand by focusing on areas like music, videos and games as users abandon the social-networking site for cooler destinations.
MySpace, which is holding a conference this week for its global ad-sales staff, needs to lure visitors back and kick-start advertising revenue, ad executives say.
Barry Diller, IAC’s chief executive, said Wednesday that he’s not interested in acquiring AOL after the Internet business is spun off from its parent company, Time Warner.
“I have no interest in purchasing AOL, but there are kinds of alliances that are possible for us,” Diller said at an investor conference in New York. “Those maybe will happen, or maybe they won’t happen.”
by Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily
While Time-Warner moves closer to the spin-off of AOL, the Street is anticipating what they might do after that. An obvious option: shed the magazine business.
In a research note picking up coverage of the company today, Caris & Co. analyst David Miller proposes that the company’s publishing arm is likely head for its “swan song.”
The U.S. Supreme Court today cleared the way for Cablevision to offer a network DVR service, allowing consumers to record copies of television programming “in the cloud,” rather than on set-top boxes. Without comment, the court refused to review a Court of Appeals ruling that rejected claims by film studios and television networks that the network DVR approach would infringe copyrights.
For people who hope the openness and flexibility of the Internet will come to mainstream television, the deal announced yesterday between Comcast and Time Warner is great news. They just don’t see yet how it blows apart the tight bond between cable content and cable delivery.
by Michael Hirschorn, Contributing Editor, The Atlantic
Newsweek’s recent decision to get out of the news-digesting business and reposition itself as a high-end magazine selling in-depth commentary and reportage follows Time magazine’s emergency retrenchment along similar lines.
by Martin Peers, Deputy Media Editor, The Wall Street Journal
Time Warner’s hiring of Tim Armstrong to run AOL is, to misquote another Armstrong, a small step for AOL but a giant leap for Time Warner.
Whether or not the former Google executive can turn around the AOL business, his hiring clearly sets up AOL to be spun off. That is a step Time Warner must take, having wasted years trying to fix or find a buyer for AOL.
The Web has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to evolve and leave embedded franchises struggling or in the dirt. Prodigy, AOL were early candidates. Today Yahoo and eBay are struggling, and I think Google is tipping down the same path, while Twitter continues to gain momentum.
When AT&T grudgingly agreed to break itself up 25 years ago, it was seen as a truly momentous event in the history of the telecommunications industry. Today, however, some experts question not only whether the breakup of AT&T was necessary, but whether it even had any long-term impact on the telecom market.
by Peter Kafka, Managing Editor, Silicon Alley Insider
Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes says he’ll have a decision on the future of AOL “soon”. That can’t come fast enough for AOL boss Randy Falco, who we’re told is now fuming about the limbo state his company has entered: “When is New York going to sell us?” we’re told he muttered in earshot of his lieutenants recently.
by Tiernan Ray, Blogger, Barron's, Tech Trader Daily
Behold the Power of Potter. Time Warner (TWX) yesterday disclosed it won’t put out the new Harry Potter film, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” this November as originally planned, and instead will make it a Summer 2009, release–specifically, for July 17 of next year.
Former AOL boss Steve Case virtually fled to his Hawaiian pineapple farm after the AOL-Time Warner merger he engineered in 2000 vaporized much of the group’s combined market value. Now that Liberty Media chairman John Malone is open to swapping his 2.8 percent stake in Time Warner for AOL’s dial-up business, the extent of Case’s [...]
by Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron\'s, Tech Trader Daily
Liberty Media (LCAPA) is “open” to swapping its stake in Time Warner (TWX) for AOL’s dial-up Internet access business, Liberty Chairman John Malone said Monday, Reuters reported.
Malone said there have not been any discussions on the concept so far, however.
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