The Big One

There has been a lot of chatter about a potential Yahoo/AOL merger, and things have picked up since majority Yahoo stakeholder Starboard Value publicly asked Marissa Mayer to purchase AOL. While speaking at TC Disrupt in London today, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong said “No,” the two companies were not thinking of joining up. Now, I’d take this more seriously if Mayer came out and said there were no plans, since she is the side feeling pressure from investors following the influx of BABA money.

Perhaps the more likely AOL rumor today is the potential spin off of CrunchBase, which Armstrong said he thinks could “be a very big company on its own.” Reportedly the internal discussions are early on, but for Armstrong to publicly promote the move I expect it happens.

ID.me announced today they have acquired Perkla, an online shopping platform for students. Terms weren’t disclosed, and Perkla’s CEO will join ID.me as Director of Product Management. Perkla brings an impressive list of retail partners to the table and combining that with ID.me’s digital verification technology is a smart fit. Furthermore, Perkla’s focus on college students and young people will help the company reach customers that are establishing their brand loyalty.

Taking a look at some of the prominent earnings reports, a couple stories emerged today. First, IBM is taking it on the chin after falling well short of expectations and revenue fell 4% YoY. The scarier bit from this is the comment from IBM that “we saw a marked slowdown in September in client buying behavior, and our results also point to the unprecedented pace of change in our industry.” Not inspiring a lot of confidence there. On the flip side, Apple is expected to show strong earnings when they report this afternoon. Things to look out for are updates on buybacks, sales of the new iPhones and expectations for the holiday season. With Apple Pay launching today it’s a busy day for Apple.

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iStrategyLabs came out with a new gadget, designed now to help you get out of a bad first date, but with some larger potential. The “Dorothy” (an app and “Ruby” device) is a small device that you place in your shoe, and when you click your heels multiple times it triggers a call to your phone or text message to friends with your location. It’s kitschy, but there’s some cool technology here and they plan to let users order an Uber with a few clicks as well.

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