Journal reports (paid link):
Under the deal, Google would buy a 5% stake in AOL for $1 billion. AOL will continue to use Google’s search technology and to share the revenue generated by ads appearing alongside search results. But importantly for AOL, it will now have the right to sell those ads directly to advertisers instead of directing advertisers to Google.
AOL will also sell some ads on behalf of Google and Web sites that outsource ad sales to Google. Meanwhile, Google will work to ensure that AOL’s content appears among its search results, but says it won’t compromise the integrity of its results. AOL will also receive advertising credit valued at about $300 million toward buying ads on Google.
AOL and Google will also make their instant-messaging software compatible. Google users will have to set up AOL Instant Messenger accounts to make the services work together.
The two are working together on video search and hinted that they may in the future collaborate on ways to digitize some of Time Warner’s vast trove of movies, television and other content for the Web.
The Journal has a free link to a story on Omid, who gets credit as an “unsung hero.”
I await clarification of how exactly this will effect paid results and inclusion of AOL content, but the counterspin from Google has been quite strong that results will not be affected. I buy that entirely as it relates to organic SERPS, but I have yet to confirm the same is true of the auction or the one box. More as I know more.
Everyone talks about this deal, its merits, the figures behind it, you name it. Still I wonder what it will do for its brand. I think that might really change now. In a way they move away from what they were all about.
I liked your entry about the figures behind it a few days ago and I linked to it in my recent blog entry.
Best
Dirk Spiers, Brandscribe
Here is Google’s – just release – Explanation of the Budding Controversy and answer to the spreading rumours:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/12/about-aol-announcement.html