AOL Sells ICQ To DST For $187.5 Million

[engine]

AOL Sells ICQ To DST For $187.5 Million [paidcontent.org]

As expected, Russian investment group Digital Sky Technologies says it has reached an agreement with AOL (NYSE: AOL) to buy its instant messaging service ICQ for $187.5 million. DST, which has investment in Facebook and Zynga; South African media giant Naspers, which holds a 30 percent stake in China’s Tencent, had been the front-runner among a number of other eastern European companies for the past few weeks. The news comes out ahead of AOL’s Q1 earnings this morning. The $187.5 million price is well below the $200- to $250 million AOL had reportedly been asking for, not to mention the $287 million base price that AOL bought ICQ for in 1998.

[J_RaD]

selling at a loss, and what the heck is that other company going to do with ICQ?

[blend27]

ICQ is very popular in Russia, and reffered to as As'ka.

[BillyS]

It never ceases to amaze me what people are willing to pay for technology that has no return on investment.

[httpwebwitch]

> no return on investment

are you sure about that?

[Nobias]

Socialism isn't about ROI (as people in the US find out the hard way these days too ;).

[msantore]

I hope this doesn't mean more Russian bots trying to add me every 15 minutes...

[BillyS]

are you sure about that?

Right, a negative return...

[trillianjedi]

It never ceases to amaze me what people are willing to pay for technology that has no return on investment.

What makes you think it was a technology sale ?

ROI : it'll have paid for itself in 4 years.

[BillyS]

What makes you think it was a technology sale ?

Because it was a sale of assets. You're not going to try an argue that they sold customer loyalty. It's very fleeting in the internet world. That was my point.

[Hugene]

ICQ is still popular in Easter Europe, so that's a good move. I remember the good old days of ICQ, with its number. People knew their numbers by heart, like a telephone number. And then the annoying MSN Messenger came along... and in good old M$ way crushed the competition.

[blend27]

.. numbers by heart..

I know 32 of them! We do Montly Shout-Outs Via ICQ for our Classmates, We graduated more than a quarter of a century ago. And the APP of choice is ICQ.

Former CCCP, Greece, Poland, Italy, Germany, France, US, Cuba, Canada, Ecuador, Brasil, Japan, Australia, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Bahamas(I wish I was there again).

The truce was called not to change the app 7 years ago to stay in touch.

[trillianjedi]

Because it was a sale of assets.

I'm not sure where you read that (do you have a link)? Everything I have read says it wasn't an asset sale it was a share sale.

[ppc_newbie]

I hope this doesn't mean more Russian bots trying to add me every 15 minutes...

Setting your mode to invisible tends to cut down on all those russian honeys.

[Brett_Tabke]

>It's very fleeting in the internet world.

Embedded AIM players that start every time millions turn on their computer? That is serious loyalty that is measured in real cash returns.

Oh an hey, what's this? they integrated AIM with Facebook chat? Seriously - aim is only second to twitter at a im app.