Blogs are Stupid

For the AOLers, interesting article at Motley Fool that indicates the asking price for AOL last year when all those rumors were floating around about possible purchasers:


AOL Up for Sale?

Rumors that Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) languishing America Online service is on the bidding block have been around for some time. Whether it was last year's report that Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) was snooping around or whispers that former chieftain Steve Case was looking to take back the company he navigated toward prominence, the speculation -- which invariably stemmed from third-party sources -- was ultimately unfounded.

But yesterday, at the D3: All Things Digital conference in California, InterActive Corp (Nasdaq: IACI) CEO Barry Diller mentioned that his company was once looking to buy AOL, but scoffed at the $20 billion asking price.

Wait a minute. That's no third party talking. That's a real name with a real price, presumably proposed by Time Warner. While we don't know how it all went down -- or if AOL is still up for sale -- it is an intriguing tidbit. With $20.5 billion in debt, the alleged asking price would help the company wipe its leveraged balance sheet clean.

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