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The Net on AOL's Time Warner deal | page 1, 2
You've got an old-line media company that used to be on top of the world being taken over. No matter how much they say this was a merger, AOL is buying the company. Even being "equal" must be a hard thing to take for a company that thought it was the world. Who ever thought this little company from Virginia would be sitting at the table in such a strong position? The internal corporate politics should be interesting to watch; AOL is very good at corporate intrigue ... But the companies are a lot more alike than you think. Bob Pittman [AOL president and chief operating officer] is a media person; he will be very active. A lot of the people at AOL are New York media people; they aren't from Silicon Valley -- if this were Yahoo it'd be an interesting mix. I think Steve Case has always been the visionary personality of AOL, and he will be leading the strategic division of the company. He's always wanted to run an old media company; he has always thought of AOL as an old-media company -- that's why he brought in Ted Leonsis [president and CEO of AOL Studios]; they brought in media people early and often. Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web, director of the World Wide Web Consortium and author of "Weaving the Web" During the World Wide Web Consortium's five years of existence, there have been many ups and downs in the related industries, along with mergers and disappearances. The need for common standards -- and the threat of fragmentation -- are still as strong as ever. We face fragmentation threats when we lose sight of the Web as a universal space -- one that is device-independent, culturally independent, ability-independent and, of course, vendor-independent. Also Today Bigger, fatter, richer
Inside the Time Warner media empire there was a whole lot of smiling going on Monday. AOL and Time Warner's marriage of insecurity
Fear drove the two companies into bed with each other. Now it's our turn to be afraid.
Jamie Zawinski, an early Netscape employee and leader of the Mozilla project, who quit shortly after the finalization of AOL's buyout of Netscape It was surprising, especially that it seems to be AOL buying Time Warner, rather than the other way around ... I don't think there's anything terribly surprising about this in the abstract, though; it was only a matter of time before the giant media dinosaurs started sinking serious money into the Net. This should worry people in the same way and for the same reasons that the sheer size of the media corporations should worry them: This kind of vertical integration makes it harder for the public to hear anything but the corporate party line, since a small number of multinational corporations control the production and distribution of news and entertainment. This is why the movie studios are prohibited from owning movie theatres. Same exact situation. It's not healthy for society. That AOL is involved in this deal brings the "what if" scenario I talked about at the end of "Netscape and AOL" a little closer to reality, but this is only one way we can end up in a bad place like that. For example, a merger between Microsoft and Viacom would be troubling in the same way. John Battelle, president of the Industry Standard It's a coup. Steve Case is now chairman of the largest media company in the world. But the extraordinary thing is [Gerald] Levin. It may turn out good or bad, but the tradition of arrogance that is ascribed to media players of the old guard does not fit with his action. He quite comfortably could have said, "We're not going to get involved in this new medium," but he's decided not to do that. That's pretty cool, in a way, that he's willing to forego that. It's not in the standard behavior pattern of old-line media. You can't imagine [Disney Chairman and CEO Michael] Eisner doing that, for example. It was interesting to see Steve Case in a tie, and Gerry Levin without. I thought that was kind of funny: the corporate guy trying to look casual, and the Internet guy dressed up. I think they both have come to Jesus. Mark Stevens, executive vice president of business development at Excite@Home I think it's a good deal for both of them. It validates strategies that we've been pursuing. @Home's service is all about a broadband, rich-media environment, and our churn rate is below the U.S. death rate. I think AOL is going to see the same loyalty with their broadband customers. One question is what AOL will do with its control of the pipe. We believe very strongly in an open Internet, letting consumers access the full richness. AOL will make its own decision about that. David Butler, spokesman for Consumers Union (publisher of Consumer Reports) Consumers don't want to be beholden to a giant media and Internet dictatorship -- even if it promises to be a benevolent one. It's a sad result of the Clinton administration's weak competition policy -- consolidation leaves people with fewer choices, limited competition and higher prices. Consumer groups are asking the Federal Communications Commission to initiate a rule-making proceeding to require open access to the Net. If we want long-term diversity of views and diversity of choice, if we want good prices, we need public responsibility rather than just wheeling and dealing.
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