

Crunch Time at AOL - gvb
http://www.cringely.com/2010/10/crunch-time-at-aol/

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ErrantX
_And based on the price Cuban was willing to pay and the relative traffic
stats of our two enterprises, I’d say TechCrunch in the current market is
worth about $7.5 million._

And in one fell swoop he completely and utterly fails to take into account the
difference in _brand_ exposure.

TC are a household name for almost everyone in tech.

(I'm sorry but I really think cringely.com is prime material to be banned from
HN, literally every post that I get sucked into clicking through to read has
me rolling my eyes in the first paragraph, the guy doesn't have a clue!)

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mikeryan
Funny I never thought about Google buying a media company. But I disagree with
Cringly on one point. Buying Time Warner actually would, in some ways, be a
better deal for Google then buying the media arm (AOL). The upside in buying
Time Warner is that Google would get control of the cable pipes of the second
largest cable company in the US (and the 3rd largest ISP). That's a lot of
bandwidth to peoples homes the could get control of. It would give them a ton
of leverage in the Net Neutrality argument. As well as tie nicely into their
existing plans with YouTube and Google TV. I haven't looked into the AOL/Time
Warner financials but if I had to guess TW is also the more profitable arm.

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aonic
Time Warner and Time Warner Cable are not the same company. TWC was spun-off
last year, and Aol is also no longer a part of Time Warner.

~~~
mikeryan
_doh_

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code_duck
The real point of this article is not Marc Cuban, or Tech Crunch's valuation.

Mainly he's saying that Google wants to buy a media company. Personally, I
don't see that happening.

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stevedc3
This guy is an absolute moron. TechCrunch is going to sell for LESS THAN 1x
REVENUES??? Based on this idiot's shitty wannabe banker comp model?

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NiekvdMaas
I agree with you: it's completely nonsense to sell a company for anything less
than 5x annual revenue. However, I'm not so sure about the TC annual revenues
you refer to (>7.5MM/year). The only source I could find is a Wired article
back from 2007
([http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-07/ff_arring...](http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-07/ff_arrington)),
where Arrington says revenues are about 200k/month = 2.4MM/year.

~~~
staunch
Arrington supposedly said it's around $10 million revenue.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-techcrunch-
price-25-milli...](http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-techcrunch-
price-25-million-2010-9)

[http://www.inc.com/magazine/20101001/the-way-i-work-
michael-...](http://www.inc.com/magazine/20101001/the-way-i-work-michael-
arrington-techcrunch.html)

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bjonathan
This article is non sense. Techcrunch $7.5m ?? The only goal of Cringely here
is to brag that Mark Cuban was interest to buy a part of his business...

Even Calacanis said that Techcrunch worth around $25m...

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mikeryan
_Even Calacanis said that Techcrunch worth around $25m..._

Of course he did - that's what he sold Weblogs Inc to them for...

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shortformblog
I so wanna make a pun on his name in regards to this article. The whole
conceit is silly. It's like he's crying over spilled milk in regards to
perceived relevance vs. actual relevance.

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aresant
He answers his own question - AOL paid a higher multiple for the TechCrunch
brand's goodwill value.

That's not unusual whatsoever.

