Well, the New Year started out with a Big Bang - Internet style. When news broke, there was the shock, then general admiration at the boldness, the brilliance of the stroke, then after a suitably brief pause, the endless analysis of who got a better deal. It is a triumph of the digital age over old media, a blazing sign of the times.
New establishment swallows old establishment.
He will not be easily pushed aside by the new giant. From that viewpoint, the merger is a shrewd move by Time Warner to position itself in the digital age. Its much heralded, and much stumbled, content portal site, Pathfinder was not quite doing the job. It needed someone who's Net savvy. The underlying fear, according to analysts and the columnists, was that AOL would cease to be valued as a Net enterprise and enjoy the price premium enjoyed by other Net companies.