Transcript

Thursday February 7, 2008

AOL’s Free, Ad-Supported Portal Splits From Dial Up Business

Yesterday Chief Executive of Time Warner Jeffrey Bewkes made the announcement that its AOL division’s Internet access business will in fact be split from AOL’s Web site and online advertising business as part of Time Warner’s efforts to raise its declining stock price and focus to the more profitable parts of its business. The split will also make it easier to sell one or both pieces of AOL, should Time Warner decide to do so. 100 corporate jobs will also be eliminated as part of the change. In response to the cost-cutting plans, Time Warner stock rose 31 cents, to close at $15.71 a share.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/business/07warner.html?_r=1&ref=technology&oref=slogin
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2008/tc2008026_677910.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_top+stories
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120234843822049385.html

Softbank's Net Income Soars

Japan’s telecom and Internet company Softbank telecom announced that its net profit more than quadrupled, shooting up to 871 million dollars from April to December 2007 compared to the same period in 2006. The increase came primarily from Softbank’s expanding mobile phone service, fueled by a successful business strategy and advertising plan along with the success of its affiliate Alibaba, a leading Chinese online business marketplace. Softbank, which owns a 41% stake in Yahoo Japan, has seen shares raise 12% this week, with the news of Microsoft’s $44.6 billion dollar bid to take over Yahoo, a 62% premium over Yahoo's closing price before the bid. Yahoo still owns about a third of its Japan affiliate.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120238039320950507.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080207/bs_afp/japantelecominternetcompanyearningssoftbank

Yahoo Ends Usage Charges On Small Business Sites

Yahoo will now offer small business Web site owners unlimited disk space, data transfer, and email storage for a flat rate of $11.95 per month as part of its Web hosting program. For a decade standard Web site hosting services have charged extra, causing business owners to pay heavily for exceeding bandwidth and storage limits on their plan. Yahoo is the largest provider of Web hosting services for small businesses in the U.S. with more than 1.5 million customers.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080207/wr_nm/yahoo_hosting_dc
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6229530.html
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/

[edited by: Vanessa_Zamora at 11:23 pm (utc) on Feb. 7, 2008]