There are two stages to this gambit by Yahoo that must be accomplished. They have to beat out Facebook, Microsoft, and anybody else interested in the 10-digit price that Tumblr is likely to fetch in the coming days. Then, they have to let the site be as it is and make no changes at all to the platform. The Swisher/Kafka tandem over at AllThingsD have reported that the Yahoo board is going to meet this weekend to discuss buying the social blogging platform for a reported $1.1 billion in cash. Sources said that the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s CEO Marissa Mayer has decided that buying Tumblr was going…

Yahoo is quickly going the way of AOL in that it’s becoming a place that simply isn’t “cool”, at least to the emerging internet users and those 20- and 30-somethings who still want to be cutting edge (and 40-, and 50-…). Everyone knows it, even Yahoo itself. “One of our challenges is we have had an aging demographic,” said CFO Ken Goldman spoke at JP Morgan’s Global Technology conference. “Part of it is going to be just visibility again in making ourselves cool, which we got away from for a couple of years.” They started heading in the right direction by getting a hip, young CEO to run the…

Many of us were born or raised in a world with the internet. For some, it has been a part of their lives for as long as they can remember and the idea of living and doing our daily activities without the connectivity that it presents is almost obscene. We’re a spoiled society. The internet itself has a much longer history than most realize. Some think back to the days of America Online as the origin, but that was only one of the tipping points that brought it into our consciousness. It was goes back much further to the time when the space program was hitting stride and computers were still huge machines in…

It’s hard to let go of your roots. For AOL, their status as internet pioneers has proven to be much of their downfall in recent years thanks to an unwillingness to jump when the web said, “jump”, and a recent willingness to jump into things that people really didn’t need them to such as content (Huffington Post and Techcrunch). Mail has always been an important service for them. They are the parents of “You’ve got mail!” However, people have moved away from their AOL email addresses, few are willing to change to them (or anyone else), and they needed a new direction, so now they’re getting into the email…

There is value in Yahoo. It’s real and tangible. While conventional wisdom would look at the trends and the follies of the beleaguered tech firm as a sign that they would be a bad investment, there’s another perspective that knows that now is the best time to buy. I know. I’ve been there. No, I’ve never worked for a huge tech firm. I have, however, been a part of a company with loads of potential but other challenges that made us ripe for acquisition at a bargain-bin price and the results were incredible for everyone involved. Today’s Yahoo has seen a string of CEO and board follies that make AOL leadership…

When Microsoft won the auction that brought over 925 US patents from AOL’s portfolio, there was clear indication that Facebook wanted in on the action. They got their wishes today and Microsoft was able to get what they wanted and have half of it paid for through Facebook’s purchase of 650 of those patents. “Today’s agreement with Facebook enables us to recoup over half of our costs while achieving our goals from the AOL auction,” said Brad Smith, executive vice president and general counsel for Microsoft. “As we said earlier this month, we had submitted the winning AOL bid in order to obtain…

According to Bloomberg, AOL and Yahoo are reportedly in talks regarding a possible merger. The report comes just three days after the dismissal of Yahoo’s CEO, Carol Bartz. AOL CEO Tim Armstrong says talks have started to gauge interest in a possible merger to strengthen both companies. Armstrong previously expressed interest in a merger with Yahoo, but then CEO Bartz quickly rejected the idea last year. Both AOL and Yahoo were once Internet pioneers, but they have been struggling to compete against the likes of Google, Facebook, and others. These struggles will make a deal unlikely, especially…

In case you missed the whole CrunchFund and Michael Arrington vs AOL debacle that has been raging for nearly a week now, the good (albeit weird) folks over at NMA.tv give us a clever digital depiction of the events. They take a minor stab at the fact that after Arrington was fired, he threatened to leave if they didn’t meet his demands. Remember the stapler guy in Office Space? Seems a little similar. …

It’s a matter of class. Apple and Google have traveled different paths on their road to success. Both have overcome challenges that could have tanked most tech companies in their early (Google) and middle (Apple) days as companies. Both have had strong leadership – Steve Jobs at Apple and most of the executive team at Google – that has kept them on course despite the challenges. Both make good decisions and bad decisions, but it is in adversity that the the true heart of the companies come out. For Apple, they were on the edge of the abyss when they swallowed their pride and brought back Steve Jobs a few…

In the past, I have been critical of Michael Arrington, founder and former co-editor of Techcrunch, over several issues. I’ve questioned his journalistic integrity (even when he claims he’s not a journalist) and some of the conclusions that he has made in his writing (such as his asinine statement that Digg shouldn’t listen to its users so much; that advice didn’t turn out too well). Still, I have always admired his ability to say what he means and mean what he says, and through the whole Arrington/Huffington/AOLington debacle, he has been in the right. Particularly now. He isn’t asking much….