AOL news stories on Newser

Facebook to Buy $550M in Patents From Microsoft

Matt Cantor — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:37:55 CDT

Earlier this month, AOL agreed to sell Microsoft 925 patents and patent applications for just north of $1 billion; now another tech giant is getting a piece of the action. Facebook has pledged to buy some 650 of those patents, or $550 million worth. In the deal, Facebook also gets...

Big Shareholder to AOL: That $1B Sale? Not Cutting It

Evann Gastaldo — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 08:23:37 CDT

AOL's $1 billion deal to sell patents to Microsoft is a good first step, but major shareholder Starboard Value still has "serious concerns" about AOL's "poor operating performance," the activist hedge fund says in a letter to the AOL board. For that reason, Starboard Value has filed with US regulators...

AOL Sells Microsoft 800 Patents

Kevin Spak — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 08:05:06 CDT

AOL has struck a mammoth deal to sell Microsoft more than 800 patents for $1.06 billion in cash, the companies announced today. That will leave AOL with a little more than 300 patents of its own related to search, advertising, and social networking, among other things, but it will...

Tax Firm, Radio Stations Join Limbaugh Exodus

Mary Papenfuss — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 04:45:00 CST

Rush Limbaugh is still hemorrhaging advertisers—and now beginning to lose radio stations as well—in the wake of his "slut' comment. Online tax advice operation Tax Resolution Services yesterday joined AOL in deserting the uber-conservative, bringing to at least nine the number of sponsors who have dumped his program,...

Careful, Facebook, or You'll Become AOL

Kevin Spak — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:44:05 CST

Jesse Kornbluth has a cautionary tale for Facebook, which he says he worked for a decade ago. "Back then, it was called America Online," he writes in the Wall Street Journal . Kornbluth was AOL's editorial director from 1997 to 2003. In those days, AOL had lots of great content, but...

Google, Yahoo, 13 Others Declare War on Phishing

Evann Gastaldo — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:12:07 CST

A new anti-phishing effort, backed by the big email service providers as well as banks, PayPal, social networks, and other companies, could dramatically reduce the number of scam emails you get in your inbox. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL are backing the new plan; 15 companies in total have come...

Microsoft, Aol, Yahoo Agree to Sell Each Other's Ads

Kevin Spak — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 10:45:52 CST

Declining tech powers, unite! Microsoft, Yahoo, and Aol have agreed to a deal that will let them sell each other’s display ads, in a bid to drive revenue up and help them compete with Google and Facebook. A Microsoft VP characterized the deal as a "rising tide that lifts all...

The New Status Symbol: AOL Email Address

Evann Gastaldo — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 18:02:05 CDT

AOL.com email addresses are so nineties , right? But apparently they're also a sort of weird status symbol amongst a certain set. Ben Smith first made the argument last week on Politico , noting that despite the "stigma" long associated with the AOL.com domain, there's also "a certain prestige" attached...

10 Hottest Domains: 1996 vs. Today

Matt Cantor — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 16:11:31 CDT

Back in 1996, AOL was king of the Internet; its closest competitor was Webcrawler; and the University of Michigan owned a top 10 domain. Things have changed, as comScore data reveal in Business Insider: 1996 : AOL. Today : Google sites. 1996 : Webcrawler.com. Today : Yahoo! sites. 1996 : Netscape. Today : Microsoft sites.