Monday was America Online's day to be in the spotlight. And the largest US Internet service provider took the opportunity to the extreme.
In addition to announcing its record-breaking US$163 billion takeover of Time Warner, AOL (AOL) rolled out a slew of agreements with e-commerce players and publishers -- including mainstream heavyweight General Motors.
AOL's agreements with GM, PBS, and shopping service Respond.com were all outshined by the sheer magnitude of the Time Warner agreement. In addition, a number of other companies with big news also found themselves eclipsed by AOL.
"For SEC reasons, they kind of kept us separate," said Mark Hogan, president of e-GM, the e-commerce arm of General Motors. "But they were alluding to the fact that they would be making some major move and that it would greatly enhance our relationship."
America Online and GM announced a deal that will allow car buyers to shop for GM models on AOL's Auto Channel site. Under terms of the agreement, customers can select a car model and options, and complete a purchase at a GM dealership.
On a regular day, the deal might have gotten some attention. But Monday was no regular day.
The AOL Time Warner merger was worth more than triple all the Web site merger and acquisition activity in the past two years, according to webmergers.com data. From January 1998 to the end of 1999, mergers and acquisitions involving Web sites totaled about $50 billion.
The merger will also create the most-visited property on the Internet, with a total combined audience of 47 million unique visitors, according to December figures from Web measurement firm Nielsen/NetRatings.
In all, it was just the kind of earthshaking financial event that one might expect to rear its head on a Monday morning.
Heavy competition for attention is frequently the fate of companies that reserve Mondays for major announcements. Known as "Merger Monday" in financial circles, the first day of the work week is commonly chosen by big companies launching very big deals. AOL was no exception.
In other Monday news, AOL disclosed it has entered a three-year alliance with the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). In a move to expand its online and television network brands, PBS will become a content provider for several AOL brands, including AOL, AOL.com, CompuServe, and ShopAOL, as well as Netscape Netcenter, the companies said.
Many of PBS' programs are to be promoted on AOL, too. PBS will also create a feature exclusively for the AOL Kids Only channel, the companies said.
Adding another to the list, Internet shopping service Respond.com disclosed an agreement with America Online's shopping division. The company, which matches sellers with buyers who type in matching keywords and price targets online, disclosed that AOL made a minority investment in the company and will feature its service on AOL's Shop@AOL site.
The attention lavished on AOL and Time Warner wasn't necessarily a bad thing for Respond, said CEO Will Clemens. Since investors' eyes were glued to AOL, the Respond announcement got a fair amount of notice.
Besides overshadowing its non-Time-Warner-related announcements, AOL's blockbuster merger deal drew attention away from all the other Net companies making major disclosures Monday.
One of the announcements dwarfed by the headline-dominating deal was an agreement by upstart telecom provider Nextlink Communications to buy Internet-access provider Concentric Network for about $2.9 billion in stock.
Also Monday, credit card company NextCard announced a partnership with Priceline.com to develop the first name-your-own terms for online credit card auctions.
And Playboy.com, the online arm of the Playboy publishing empire, announced plans for an initial public offering of stock.
Why all the hoopla so early in the week?
"I think it's as simple as on Friday, people are wrapping up business for the week. On a Monday, people are all looking at the market," Clemens said.
