Hot on the heels of Microsoft handing over Bing imaging assets and employees to Uber, AOL has announced a partnership and deal that will see it take over sales and management of online advertisements on Microsoft Web properties:
The deal, which was announced on Monday (US time), will see AOL take over ads for such sites as MSN Homepage, Outlook.com, Skype, Xbox, and ads in apps. Markets affected include the US, UK, Canada, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Spain. "The arrangement will improve ad campaign efficiency and effectiveness through the delivery of scaled premium inventory across display, video and mobile, and enables marketers to deeply target premium audiences globally in key verticals, including autos, entertainment, health & fitness, lifestyle, money, news, sports, travel, and weather," AOL gushed in a canned statement.
The partnership also includes a new ten-year arrangement in which the AOL portal will switch its search engine to Bing from January 1, 2016, while AOL will sell and manage ads both on its own search site and on Microsoft's. "This deal is further evidence of the quality of Bing results and the performance of the Bing Ads marketplace," Microsoft corporate veep Rik van der Kooi said in a statement. "And we will continue our focus on delivering world class consumer services and content and look forward to partnering with AOL to market them."
Online ads have never been a massive business for Microsoft. Compared to its rival Google, which earns in excess of 90 per cent of its revenue from its various ad businesses, Microsoft tucks its online ad sales into its "Devices and Consumer Other" reporting segment, which itself accounts for only about a tenth of the software giant's revenue.
Original Submission
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TechCrunch reports that Uber is acquiring imaging/mapping assets and talent from Microsoft's Bing search engine division:
Uber will acquire assets from Microsoft Bing, including roughly 100 employees focused on the product's image collection activities. In short, Uber is absorbing data-collection engineers from Microsoft to bolster its own mapping work. The companies confirmed the transaction with TechCrunch, but each declined to name the terms of the agreement. Microsoft handing Uber part of its operating expenses is minor, given the financial scale of the firms. The technology transfer is far more interesting.
The move also underscores Uber's ambition. A firm doesn't hire 100 specific-focus engineers in a single move if it doesn't have large product aspirations. The new Uber kids are the folks who worked to get image data into Bing, meaning that the search engine's 3D, aerial and street footage is in large part their doing. You can therefore start to presume what Uber has in mind.
The deal continues a recent Uber splurge on mapping technology:
Although most Uber services rely on digital maps, much of its interest in mapping is focused on how to improve its carpooling service, UberPool. While Uber relies heavily on mapping technology from Apple, Baidu and especially Google, the company has taken strides to bring as much mapping expertise in-house as possible.
In March, Uber acquired deCarta, a mapping technology start-up. Uber has also aggressively pursued mapping engineering talent throughout Silicon Valley. And for months, Uber has been avidly competing to buy Nokia Here, the mapping division of the Finnish technology giant, in a deal that could be valued at up to $4 billion, according to several people with direct knowledge of the matter. A small number of bidders are still circling Nokia's business, according to these people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations were not public.
In other news, two Uber managers were arrested in France and questioned over the firm's ongoing "illicit activity," following protests by taxi drivers and the ban of UberPOP by France's interior minister.
Original Submission
(Score: 3, Funny) by AnonTechie on Tuesday June 30 2015, @12:44PM
So, is AOL going to, once again, start sending CDs (or DVDs) with Microsoft ad campaigns ?
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @01:05PM
AOL could return the USPS to profitability and halt global warming by carpeting the earth with DVDs shiny side up.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday June 30 2015, @01:28PM
Only for AOL Broadband powered by its new corporate overlord, Verizon. Take that, Time-Warner.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by M. Baranczak on Tuesday June 30 2015, @02:03PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @02:08PM
Certificate of Deposit. Now get off my lawn.
(Score: 2, Touché) by bryan on Tuesday June 30 2015, @07:13PM
No, no. This is an article about Microsoft. Therefore, "CD" stands for Cease and desist [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday June 30 2015, @08:28PM
No, no. This is an article about Microsoft..... C*ck and douche, etc.
Typing on a tablet, switching keyboards is too much trouble.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @08:46AM
What does C*ck mean? I can't understand, because it's obscured.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Tuesday June 30 2015, @01:31PM
The reason for AOL to exist has been dead for over a decade now, and you would have thought they would have gone the way of Compuserve and the gazillions of other dial-up ISPs that are now out of business and mostly forgotten. And yet somehow they've been able to keep on shuffling on without anything resembling a flagship product or customer base.
I guess this is proof that corporations are like zombies, except that not even a shotgun blast to the head really stops them.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @01:37PM
The dinosaurs evolved into today's birds, so AOL can morph into Microsoft's online ad agency, taking over from the failed aQuantive/Razorfish acquisition. But what happens to TechCrunch and HuffPo?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @02:04PM
HuffPo becomes HuffPoo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @04:40PM
There are still people out there using AOL every day. Their properties just do not carry the AOL brand name. Their land-line service is shrinking quickly. All of their other segments are growing.
somehow they've been able to keep on shuffling on without anything resembling a flagship product or customer base.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_AOL [wikipedia.org]
The shifted out of land-line services long ago. The moved into 'media portal' and advertising.
Then this
http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/12/investing/verizon-buys-aol/ [cnn.com]
They bought them for their advertising platform. They already have their own land-line segments. The media segments are 'bonus'.
I guess this is proof that corporations are like zombies, except that not even a shotgun blast to the head really stops them.
Lets say they have 1 million people using it for 7 bucks a month. Would you take out back and shoot in the head a business unit that brings in 84+ million a year? Remember there are thousands of people out there where they can not even get DSL. Their total business brings in 2.57 BILLION a year with a gross profit of 600 million.
AOL has a image problem. They are seen as a dial up company. They never repositioned themselves mentally as a media company. Even though that is exactly what they have always been. Even back in the day you did not get AOL to get on the net (I remember the dark days of USENET being hooked up to AOL). You got on it for its walled garden. Its advertisements, stores, games, and chat platforms. Personally I had no interest in that as I knew about the internet. But there were many who did not and enjoyed it and even paid for it.
You want them to go away. If *only* people would just stop buying and looking at things you dont like!
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday June 30 2015, @07:35PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @01:49PM
Of why corporations outsource non-core activities. In theory, Microsoft can save big money, and more importantly, retain exclusive control over data analysis, if they continued to do the ad placement in house. The problem was that they couldn't attract top talent to work in that segment of "Devices and Consumer Other"; it just didn't have a big impact on either Microsoft's technical stack or its bottom line.
Even if they could get good people, that talent would be spending most of their working hours trying to land a job elsewhere, either inside or outside of MS, like a governor of a US state who spends most of their time running for President. So the division most likely became a dumping ground for managers who didn't work out in one of Microsoft's core groups.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @02:06PM
Except that Microsoft wants this to be a core revenue stream. They and Apple want to be Google, at least when it comes to monetizing the eyeballs they control.
Ignoring all that for just a second...why they would tap AOL for this is beyond me.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mechanicjay on Tuesday June 30 2015, @08:22PM
Indeed, it's the perfect marriage of mediocrity.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Tuesday June 30 2015, @03:50PM
So Satya Nadella's tombstone will have "outsource everything, open source the rest" after he destroys Microsoft. The idea is to outsource everything that isn't a core business function, but ... what is MS's core business now? I see a lot of heat out of MS these days, open sourcing this, supporting that mobile platform, and so on, but not much light about what they hope to accomplish. Their slogan is "mobile first" which means porting their software to other platforms, opening them to competition from new paradigms (has anyone actually wanted Office on the iPad?), and "cloud first" which means race-to-the-bottom commodity computing. They're also making open-source development tools and technologies. So what is MS's core business? If it's SQL Server licenses, I don't know how much growth there is. A lot of old-line vertical market packages are built on SQL Server, but anything new these days seems to be NoSQL. If it's back-end computing, like Great Plains, there's a limited market, and how much longer before that kind of stuff is outsourced by the companies buying the software from MS now? MS is abandoning its own mobile platforms for Android and iOS. Just what are they doing as a core business these days? Not advertising, if that's being outsourced. I can't pin down the area of revenue growth for MS that they're getting from these new efforts.
Nadella is like the unattractive male version of Marissa Meyer at Yahoo. He's doing a lot of random stuff, and getting a lot of press attention, most of it good, but I haven't seen a unified strategy to pull MS out of its nosedive yet. I guess that's why I'm not a business success. I just don't see what these people see.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @06:07PM
You make very good points but I wouldn't be so quick to say "everything is using NoSQL these days"...
Also, I want a pizza-roll...
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 30 2015, @07:04PM
So what is MS's core business?
The Android patents extortion racket. Everything else can go.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JeffPaetkau on Tuesday June 30 2015, @07:10PM
He's doing a lot of random stuff, and getting a lot of press attention, most of it good, but I haven't seen a unified strategy to pull MS out of its nosedive yet.
I pray that my business will nosedive just like Microsoft!
https://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/revenues_ttm [ycharts.com]
https://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/price [ycharts.com]
https://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/pe_ratio [ycharts.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by stormwyrm on Tuesday June 30 2015, @11:39PM
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by JeffPaetkau on Wednesday July 01 2015, @12:19AM
They may not be losing revenue, but they are nosediving in terms of relevancy
Sure that is probably true. However, it is also true that it was bound to happen eventually anyway. Absolute domination of the industry just isn't a realistic bar. As long as they remain competitive despite loosing some relevance they are ahead of the game.
(Score: 2) by skullz on Tuesday June 30 2015, @11:00PM
From the consumer and developer side I have seen Microsoft shift from being The One Big Fish to being a company that actually tries to help solve people's problems. I take that back, they are trying to be the Platform For People to Solve Problems For You. Their Azure stuff is a good PaaS starting point, their Server lineup is easy to administer, their app market is going cross platform. It is not quite there yet but they seem to be positioning themselves to be the go-to source for solutions with minimal headache. Sure, you could get better bleeding edge this-or-that by going somewhere else but with a subscription or two you could slap something together and get your boss of your back.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @12:31AM
In my circles, Microsoft has been irrelevant for a long long time. They own the legacy market*, but that isn't a growth market. Even their own cloud services are cannibalizing their traditional lines like MS Exchange, but if MS didn't offer o365, they would lose all those customers to Google Apps.
I don't know if their new CEO is at the Embrace phase of a plan to continue MS's historic business strategy Embrace Extend Extinguish, or if he / MS is serious about trying to play well with others for a change. But, they have to do something, or else they will slowly die-- their all-in cloud and mobile strategy of the last CEO has only bled money hastening their demise.
*Most laptops sold in the last several years do not have windows installed on them. Desktops sales are nearly dead. Nobody uses an MS phone except that clueless person who liked that they came in blue then realized it couldn't run any of the things their friends phones ran-- or that MS fan boy. Nearly all cloud services companies are run on *nix. The embedded space is owned by Linux, and a few RT OS vendors. Nearly every supercomputer in the world is running Linux. Just legacy desktops and legacy office applications (that are moving to the cloud) are still run on windows.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Wednesday July 01 2015, @07:50AM
*Most laptops sold in the last several years do not have windows installed on them.
You got a cite for that, because that's a pretty bold claim that I can't find any evidence to support. Maybe tablets out number laptops sold, and tablets are predominently non-windows, but tablets aren't laptops, and you claimed laptops.
And no tablets aren't laptop substitutes.