Doing the numbers on the AOL - Weblos Inc deal

Thanks for the link on this subject and set of information. I was asking some of these questions in my head and on my blog the other day.

Itâ€™s seems it would be difficult to price what is intellectual property and then add in the virtual and unknowns. I would still be very cautious investing in this market moving ahead. I would like to see more thorough analysis of these buys and why.

Obviously, the big companies are seeing the value in acquiring these virtual properties and traffic but what are the reasons behind it? Times are economically treacherous with what is going on all around the world. What are the business models and finances behind these purchases? Is it if you own the monopoly you win?

I saw another article that mentioned the last time AOL bought up virtual property was preceding the big DOT.COM bust. Sorry, I canâ€™t seem to find the reference link for exact details on that one.

Iâ€™m very suspicious of this whole deal. It is a lot of money for Weblogs Inc for what a big corporation could have worked around and created themselves for much less. I had a site many years ago that had more content and pages then this entire network The links were probably almost comparable in number if you put in ratio to what the size of the internet is now and what it was then. I was a one man band hand coding at the time. I donâ€™t mean to be cynical or conspiratal, but something just doesnâ€™t appear copasetic, especially with the numbers shown in the above link and information.

With the right resources and far less, and I mean far less from the amount spent on this acquisition I could build a much larger network of blogs, linkage and visitor base in six months. Yes, I have the complete confidence in being able to do this. So why did the big guy with the money make this deal?

View Comment (1)

BlogCruiser says:

October 9, 2005 at 4:32 pm

Thanks for the link on this subject and set of information. I was asking some of these questions in my head and on my blog the other day.

Itâ€™s seems it would be difficult to price what is intellectual property and then add in the virtual and unknowns. I would still be very cautious investing in this market moving ahead. I would like to see more thorough analysis of these buys and why.

Obviously, the big companies are seeing the value in acquiring these virtual properties and traffic but what are the reasons behind it? Times are economically treacherous with what is going on all around the world. What are the business models and finances behind these purchases? Is it if you own the monopoly you win?

I saw another article that mentioned the last time AOL bought up virtual property was preceding the big DOT.COM bust. Sorry, I canâ€™t seem to find the reference link for exact details on that one.

Iâ€™m very suspicious of this whole deal. It is a lot of money for Weblogs Inc for what a big corporation could have worked around and created themselves for much less. I had a site many years ago that had more content and pages then this entire network The links were probably almost comparable in number if you put in ratio to what the size of the internet is now and what it was then. I was a one man band hand coding at the time. I donâ€™t mean to be cynical or conspiratal, but something just doesnâ€™t appear copasetic, especially with the numbers shown in the above link and information.

With the right resources and far less, and I mean far less from the amount spent on this acquisition I could build a much larger network of blogs, linkage and visitor base in six months. Yes, I have the complete confidence in being able to do this. So why did the big guy with the money make this deal?