Crunch Time at AOL

TechCrunch, a company made up of tech blogs somewhat like this one as well as classified advertising and some events, announced its sale last week to the new-old AOL for a price widely, broadly, and deeply rumored to be $30 million. Nobody will officially confirm this price but I have no reason to believe $30 million is wrong. It is way too high, but it probably isn’t wrong. The better question is why would AOL pay TechCrunch four times what it is actually worth?

I think I know why.

Since I am not known as an equity analyst, you might wonder what makes me believe that TechCrunch is worth only a quarter of the rumored […]

Is There a Google News Blacklist?

My relationship with Google News has always run hot and cold. No make that cold and tepid. From the very beginning of Google News as an experiment back in 2001, they refused to index my work, which they said was my fault, not theirs (“they” being an algorithm attached to an e-mail box, of course). But new evidence has recently come to light suggesting to me that Google News has an actual blacklist.

For those not familiar with the expression, “blacklist” usually refers to Hollywood screen and television writers from the 1950’s McCarthy era who were thought to be communist sympathizers and were banned from working openly in the entertainment industry as a […]

AOL Real Estate

AOLrealestateToday I started moonlighting for AOL Real Estate where I’ll be posting twice a week.

By |December 10th, 2009|2009|84 Comments