________________________________________________________________________________ AOL loves TIMEWARNER You have all probably heard the alarming news, THEY are merging. I find this news so depressing, it is as if all my political economy nightmares are coming true and the worst part is that all I can do is write and talk some more about them. I am writing this letter as a call, a call to anybody that is furious and depressed about this merger to propose some kind of collective statement that condemns it. Warnings of conglomarate expansion and the on-line world where treated with skeptisism, critiques said that the Internet will survive the horrible tentacles of capitalism. The opposite is obviously the case. It is important that some kind of collective criticism against the growing patterns of converging conglomeration is voiced. I do not know maybe I am exaddurating but if there is anybody that can either show me the way to not cry when things like this happen or thinks something can be done I would be obliged if they contacted me. As for the personal tone of this e-mail which lacks academic tone and substance I do not have to apologise for this merger is not an academic matter it is a symbol of power with real consequences in our lives. Thanks Korinna Patelis Korinna Patelis Department of Media and Communications Goldsmiths College-London-SE14 6NW DIRECT LINE 0171-9197243 # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net ================================================================================ http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,33531,00.html http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,33549,00.html /* take a look at the new header. LYCOS loves WIRED... */ ================================================================================ AOL, Time Warner to Merge by Declan McCullagh 7:15 a.m. 10.Jan.2000 PST America Online said Monday it was buying entertainment colossus Time Warner in a deal that will create the world's largest media and online services company. AOL chairman and CEO Steve Case will be chairman of the new firm, which will be called AOL Time Warner and have a market value of some US$350 billion. Although both companies say the deal is a "merger of equals," AOL (AOL) shareholders will own about 55 percent of the new corporation, with the rest going to Time Warner (TWX) shareholders. The company created by the all-stock deal will be traded under the symbol AOL on the New York Stock Exchange and headed by Gerald Levin, Time Warner chairman and CEO. It would allow the new technology titan to easily leap ahead of its rivals in traffic rankings, beating out Yahoo.com, which currently tops the Media Metrix list at 35,400,000 unique visitors a month. The combo of AOL and Time Warner's most popular sites totals over 44,200,000 visitors for November 1999. The move has already drawn a rush of investors to the companies on Monday, both of which have seen their stock languish in recent months. Time Warner, which closed Friday at 64 3/4, had not managed to best its 52-week high of 78 5/8 from last spring, and AOL's closing price of 73 3/4 is about 10 points lower than its May 1999 value. That's already changing. Time Warner shares catapulted $30 to $95 in pre-open trade on Monday morning, while America Online jumped $13 to $85.875. The enthusiasm spurred shares of media stocks higher across Europe and sent the combined market capitalization of both companies higher by some $10 billion. The combined company -- assuming shareholders and regulators approve the deal -- will become a media conglomerate with unprecedented reach across media platforms by allowing the delivery of programming from Time Warner's stable of brands onto the Web and giving AOL access to Time Warner's US cable television network to offer high-speed Internet access. Although Time Warner's brands -- including Time, CNN, Warner Bros., and Looney Tunes -- are household names and cultural icons, the company's online presence is comparatively limited. Its Pathfinder portal -- the idea was to combine Time Inc. magazine brands and original content on the Web -- failed, and its other projects like community-building around its entertainment properties rank far behind competitors such as Geocities. The execs hope to change all this. "This is a defining event for Time Warner and America Online as well as a pivotal moment in the unfolding of the Internet age," said Richard Parsons, Time Warner's president. "By joining the resources and talents of these two highly creative companies, we can accelerate the development and deployment of a whole new generation of interactive services and content." Early chatter on investor discussion groups was generally positive. "I think Time Warner's 'content everywhere' pattern of growth for the past decade falls in nicely with 'AOL anywhere.' Don't you?" wrote one person on the Motley Fool boards. Parsons and AOL President and Chief Operating Officer Bob Pittman will be co-chief operating officers of AOL Time Warner. J. Michael Kelly, senior vice president and chief financial officer of America Online, will become the new company's chief financial officer and executive vice president. The three executives will report to Levin. Under terms of the definitive deal, which has been approved unanimously by both boards of directors, Time Warner and America Online stock will be converted to AOL Time Warner stock at fixed exchange ratios. Time Warner shareholders will receive 1.5 shares of AOL Time Warner for each share of Time Warner stock they own while AOL shareholders will receive one share of AOL Time Warner stock for each share of AOL they own. Ted Turner, Time Warner's vice chairman, has agreed to vote his Time Warner shares, representing about 9 percent of the company's outstanding common stock, in favor of the merger. He will be vice chairman of the merged company. ================================================================================ And Now, For Those Other Deals by Joanna Glasner 3:00 a.m. 11.Jan.2000 PST Monday was America Online's day to be in the spotlight. And the largest US Internet service provider took the opportunity to the extreme. In addition to announcing its record-breaking US$163 billion takeover of Time Warner, AOL (AOL) rolled out a slew of agreements with e-commerce players and publishers -- including mainstream heavyweight General Motors. AOL's agreements with GM, PBS, and shopping service Respond.com were all outshined by the sheer magnitude of the Time Warner agreement. In addition, a number of other companies with big news also found themselves eclipsed by AOL. "For SEC reasons, they kind of kept us separate," said Mark Hogan, president of e-GM, the e-commerce arm of General Motors. "But they were alluding to the fact that they would be making some major move and that it would greatly enhance our relationship." America Online and GM announced a deal that will allow car buyers to shop for GM models on AOL's Auto Channel site. Under terms of the agreement, customers can select a car model and options, and complete a purchase at a GM dealership. On a regular day, the deal might have gotten some attention. But Monday was no regular day. The AOL Time Warner merger was worth more than triple all the Web site merger and acquisition activity in the past two years, according to webmergers.com data. From January 1998 to the end of 1999, mergers and acquisitions involving Web sites totaled about $50 billion. The merger will also create the most-visited property on the Internet, with a total combined audience of 47 million unique visitors, according to December figures from Web measurement firm Nielsen/NetRatings. In all, it was just the kind of earthshaking financial event that one might expect to rear its head on a Monday morning. Heavy competition for attention is frequently the fate of companies that reserve Mondays for major announcements. Known as "Merger Monday" in financial circles, the first day of the work week is commonly chosen by big companies launching very big deals. AOL was no exception. In other Monday news, AOL disclosed it has entered a three-year alliance with the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). In a move to expand its online and television network brands, PBS will become a content provider for several AOL brands, including AOL, AOL.com, CompuServe, and ShopAOL, as well as Netscape Netcenter, the companies said. Many of PBS' programs are to be promoted on AOL, too. PBS will also create a feature exclusively for the AOL Kids Only channel, the companies said. Adding another to the list, Internet shopping service Respond.com disclosed an agreement with America Online's shopping division. The company, which matches sellers with buyers who type in matching keywords and price targets online, disclosed that AOL made a minority investment in the company and will feature its service on AOL's Shop@AOL site. The attention lavished on AOL and Time Warner wasn't necessarily a bad thing for Respond, said CEO Will Clemens. Since investors' eyes were glued to AOL, the Respond announcement got a fair amount of notice. Besides overshadowing its non-Time-Warner-related announcements, AOL's blockbuster merger deal drew attention away from all the other Net companies making major disclosures Monday. One of the announcements dwarfed by the headline-dominating deal was an agreement by upstart telecom provider Nextlink Communications to buy Internet-access provider Concentric Network for about $2.9 billion in stock. Also Monday, credit card company NextCard announced a partnership with Priceline.com to develop the first name-your-own terms for online credit card auctions. And Playboy.com, the online arm of the Playboy publishing empire, announced plans for an initial public offering of stock. Why all the hoopla so early in the week? "I think it's as simple as on Friday, people are wrapping up business for the week. On a Monday, people are all looking at the market," Clemens said. ================================================================================ /* more: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/01/10/1418231 */ ================================================================================ ________________________________________________________________________________ no copyright 2000 rolux.org - no commercial use without permission. is a moderated mailing list for the advancement of minor criticism. more information: mail to: majordomo@rolux.org, subject line: , message body: info. further questions: mail to: rolux-owner@rolux.org. archive: http://www.rolux.org