AOL Sucks. Time Warner Sucks. Merge the two of them & Wall St goes ape-sh!t ! Well, sorry to say, all you bubble-heads out there.... I could not be more UNDER-WHELMED! THe press-conference was a joke... Steve case, like some freshly-scrubbed cherub, making out with Levin of TW, who looked like some recovering drug-abuser.... What a sight ! I fail to see the big deal about some lousy Internet Service Provider getting into bed with a mediocre media outfit (apologies Bugs Bunny). Why is this outfit worth 400 Billion ? what am i missing ? And dont use the dreaded word "Synergy" or the phrase "NEw Media". Thank You

-- Hardly Amused (the.truth.hurts@like.hell), January 10, 2000

Answers

Because people like "Dick Clark" mindless entertainment(?). It involves no thought whatsoever and relies on sensationalizing substances made of pure vapor.

My concern is the future loss of bandwidth when all these morons start watching Looney Toons "LIVE ON THE WEB !!!".

-- Witch Doctor (bobmarley@hotmail.com), January 10, 2000.

Why the euphoria? Why the question? Who cares?

-- (irrelevant@awol.com), January 10, 2000.

irrelevant@awol.com - why the question ? because when this bubble bursts due to gross hyping of the stock market & all these companies of dubious worth, people like you you will be left holding your privates pleading "What happened.... nobody told me... bahhaa! baaahhha!"

-- is-it-worth-it (gloom@doom.com), January 10, 2000.

are you for real? maybe you've had you head wrapped up in Y2K for so long you've lost some contact with the real world. calling AOL a "lousy Internet Service Provider" misses the point by as much as Ed Yourdon's Y2K predictions missed what actually happened (i.e. by a million light years and then some).

okay, here's the deal. the pipes (AOL) plus the water (Time Warner) delivered to 20 million Americans. do you see? AOL can now deliver content from Time Warner media properties to its huge customer base. in terms of mergers, this one makes a lot of sense.

-- WTF (asdf@asdf.com), January 11, 2000.

WTF - Take your head outta the commode (after you flush). - The 'Pipes'.... a commodity - THe 'Content... a very 3rd rate commodity

-- is-it-worth-it (gloom@doom.com), January 11, 2000.

WTF:

You missed the other side. Sure you can deliver Time Warner products to your 20 million subscribers, but, Time Warner can deliver AOL to 85% of the US via their cable divisions. Can you immagine giving your cable subscribers the best thing to an ISDN line if they just attach a computer modem to their cable box. That may give AOL another subscriber base several times the base that they have right now.

AOL will control your horizontal and vertical world from ther generation of entertainment content to delivery of that product. If you feel that control of media could be a problem, the best starting point would be with AOL-Time Warner.

-- ned (ned@nednet.com), January 11, 2000.