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In a bid to target fantasy sports players, AOL has purchased the Fleaflicker Web site for an undisclosed amount. Fleaflicker, which lets players create fictional U.S. football teams, has attracted users and advertisers with the popularity of Internet gaming, AOL spokeswoman Alysia Lew said in a statement Friday. The free service will operate independently and will also be integrated into AOL’s sports site. The purchase comes on top of the almost $2 billion AOL has committed since 2006 to buying online ad companies and Bebo, the third-largest social-networking Web site. AOL also said Friday that the number of visitors to its sites for topics such as finance, food and games rose 11 percent to 56.5 million in March, citing figures from researcher ComScore.
View: Full Story at SiliconValley.com

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is in talks with Microsoft about joining in its contested bid for Yahoo, according to people involved in the discussions. The combination, which would join Yahoo, Microsoft’s MSN and News Corporation’s MySpace, would create a behemoth that would upend the Internet landscape.
The talks are a surprising twist in the two-month-long takeover story that began when Microsoft made a $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo. Yahoo has resisted Microsoft’s overtures, contending that it will not negotiate unless Microsoft raises its offer. Yahoo, which wants to remain independent, has been in a desperate search for white knights, holding conversations with Time Warner’s AOL and News Corporation.
If News Corporation throws its weight behind Microsoft’s offer, that could allow Microsoft to raise its bid, putting even more pressure on Yahoo and its shareholders. At the same time, the alignment of Microsoft and News Corporation would remove a possible alternative for Yahoo, leaving it with fewer opportunities to escape Microsoft’s grasp.
View: Full Article @ The New York Times

Yahoo’s done its best to fend off Microsoft’s aggressive advances until now, but it suddenly looks like the struggling company might be getting some help — both the Wall Street Journal and Reuters are reporting that the Yahoo is “closing in” on a deal to merge with Time Warner’s AOL division and partner up with Google on search advertising. Yeah, that’s pretty major, and it would probably do something about those declining shares Microsoft’s been making noise about. The idea is for Time Warner to sell AOL to Yahoo and make a large investment in the new company, which would probably be valued at around $10B. There’s apparently a lot of work left to do on the deal, and it would still have to be approved by Yahoo and Time Warner shareholders, but it looks like Yahoo is no longer stuck taking Ballmer and Co. to the dance. [Engadget]

Read - WSJ article
Read - Reuters article

AOL and Yahoo! are said to have held talks as the search engine considers potential deals to help it evade the clutches of Microsoft.
Advisers from Time Warner-owned AOL met with representatives of search engine Yahoo! to see if a deal is workable, the Sunday Telegraph reported.
The talks with internet firm AOL come after Yahoo!’s rejection last week of Microsoft’s offer to buy the company for 42 billion US dollars (£21.4bn).
Among the other suitors for Yahoo!, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is thought to have offered to buy a 20% stake in Yahoo! in a deal that would see Yahoo! swap shares for a clutch of online assets, including social networking site MySpace. Mr Murdoch has ruled out making a full bid.
Details of the discussions involving AOL and Yahoo! remain unclear, although a potential sticking point could be Google’s small stake in AOL. Anti-trust laws would make any deal involving Google and either AOL or NewsCorp difficult, the newspaper report said.
Microsoft’s approach came a year after the two companies held talks over a possible tie-up to challenge Google, although Yahoo! rejected the proposals at the time because it hoped to reap benefits from an overhaul of the business.
But Microsoft warned on unveiling its offer that the competitive situation had not improved and that it believed a merger was the “only alternative” to challenging Google’s dominance.
The software giant wants to offer a credible alternative to Google through the tie-up, offering greater choice to advertisers, increasing research and development spending and stripping out overhead costs.
It has also hinted at a hostile bid by reserving the right “to pursue all necessary steps” to win over the firm’s shareholders if the deal is opposed [MSN News]

Competition is great, but jumping into a market “just because everyone else is doing it”? Not the best idea. Now, we’re not saying that AOL’s recently announced Open Mobile Platform isn’t something worthy of your consideration. The question, however, is whether or not we really need another another entry into the mobile platform mar ket. Either way, consider AOL a part of the picture. The former Internet giant is throwing their hat into the mobile OS sphere, throwing together a package that includes open source access to an XML-based development language, a mobile device client, and an application server. The company will also be providing open-source access to many of its current software offerings, including AIM, AOL Mail, AOL Video, Mapquest, Winamp, and more. The inclusion of AIM and Mapquest are noteworthy additions, but we’re pretty sure this will flop soon after it hits the market sometime this summer. Then again, we’re just one voice among many. Would you buy an AOL handset? Why or why not? [AOL via BGR]

The browser that helped kick-start the commercial web is to cease development because of lack of users. Netscape Navigator, now owned by AOL, will no longer be supported after 1 February 2008, the company has said. In the mid-1990s the browser was used by more than 90% of the web population, but numbers have slipped to just 0.6%. In particular, the browser has faced competition from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE), which is now used by nearly 80% of all web users.
“While internal groups within AOL have invested a great deal of time and energy in attempting to revive Netscape Navigator, these efforts have not been successful in gaining market share from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer,” said Tom Drapeau on the company’s blog.
View: Full article @ BBC News

First, it was America Online. In 2006, America Online changed its name to AOL. Now AOL will reportedly change its name, yet again, to TMZ.

In April, 2006, America Online announced that after 15 years it was retiring the name America Online and will now officially be known simply as AOL. At that time, the legal structure of AOL also changed, from a corporation to a limited liability company.

According to Brian Alvey, the co-founder of the Weblogs, Inc. Network (AOL acquired Weblogs, Inc. around October 2005), AOl has been making changes to parts of the AOl site, putting additional emphasis on TMZ:

Reading all of this news about how Facebook is the new AOL Buddy List and seeing how many people can only understand what I did in blogging when I tell them that my platform is what TMZ runs on, I am now convinced that AOL will be undergoing another name change by the end of the year.

Many users have been flocking to Facebook lately, and theres even an AOL/Facebook partnership, which kind of got mixed reviews.

If you look at the graph below (courtesy Alexa.com), youll see that the AOL traffic (shown in red) has been steadily going down over the past few years while the TMZ traffic has been going up:

I have to admit that yes, its probably time for a change. AOL has been known as a dialup service that caters to newbies, and a lot of techies in the internet world tend to look at someone differently if the have an AOL email address. It may be time for AOL to rebrand itself to TMZ. Look for AOL to start the rebranding efforts in a few months, perhaps sooner.

AOL LLC, and its subsidiaries, operate a network of internet brands and the largest Internet access subscription service in the United States. The AOL LLC brands include the AOL.com(R) website, AIM(R), MapQuest(R) and Netscape(R). AOL also has operations in Europe and in Canada. AOL, which is based in Dulles, Virginia, is a subsidiary of Time Warner. [Internet Financial News]

AOL has released a beta version of its AOL “OpenRide”, codename “Helix.” This new version should be replacing OpenRide after the beta is over.

Welcome to the beta test of AOL’s newest software in development, codenamed Helix. It integrates email, Web browsing, instant messaging, and other online activities into a single, easy-to-use application, letting you multitask in fewer clicks and fewer hassles. With a sleek, modern interface and convenient new features, it is designed to help make everything you do online faster and easier.

Highlights include:

• Improved Navigation: A new “AppMap” feature located between the Web button and Search field on the toolbar, instantly displays clickable thumbnails of all your open windows. Now you can find what you’re looking for instantly - and switch windows with just one click.
• Tabbed Organization: Tabs on email, browser and IM windows allow you to surf, send mail and more, without cluttering your screen.
• More Email Options: New, streamlined AOL Mail lets you send and receive messages using multiple email accounts, including GMail, Verizon and many more, in the same window.
• Enhanced IM: AIM 6.1 is built right in so you can see which buddies are online, chat, share pictures and more.
  Easy to Use: New functionality allows for fast, easy transfer of your Favorites and Personal Filing Cabinet from AOL 9.0 to Helix.

Standard Internet behaviors include:

• Web browsing without sign in.
• Local favorites with feeds support.
• Inbox view of received mail.
• Multiple email accounts can be accessed from one mailbox.

View: AOL Helix Site