John Battelle's Searchblog

John, firstly, I have experienced some prob with your Flash towers (the flower love one). I am using the latest firefox and I can't click on other tabs when the incriminated tab (which contains the flash tower) is in focus - CTRL+page up/down doesn't work as well. I was wondering whether I am alone.

One has to wonder whether Microsoft courting Yahoo is not heading for the same murky waters; Granted Microsoft and Yahoo have more in common than TW and AOL ever had, but there's something about mega-mergers in TROUBLED economic periods which spooks me out.

Even in 2000, when AOL was the powerful upstart acquiring Time Warner, it was--like all invasive organisms--also destined to be expelled by Time Warner. Nature and finance operate under the same rules, even if one is a biological process and the other an economic one. And the rule that governed the fate of the merger was that unfit organisms that parasatize a host are destined either to kill the host (and themselves in the process) or be beaten by the host. AOL almost went in the first direction, and Time Warner's stock price--stubbornly stuck in the mid-teens for the last six years--is proof of the damage AOL did to the larger system. But ultimately, Time Warner contained the infection. Whether it spins it off now or simply keeps it quarantined from its other subsidiaries, the virus has been controlled. The hope is that a lesson has been learned.

Even in 2000, when AOL was the vibrant upstart acquiring the venerable Time Warner, the merger was destined to fail. Economics and biology are governed by the same rules, even if one is a physical system and the other a fiscal one. And the rule that governed the AOL/Time Warner merger was that invasive organisms must either kill the host they parasatize (and kill themselves in the process) or be contained and defeated by the host. In the case of the merger, AOL almost went in the first direction, and Time Warner's stock price--stubbornly stuck in the mid teens since 2001--is proof of the damage the pathogen did to the larger system. But ultimately Time Warner contained the infection, sealing it off from its other subsidiaries. Whether it spins it off now or simply absorbs it like so much dead tissue, the acute part of the infection is at long last over. The hope is that a lesson has been learned.