Time Warner Learns From Mistakes?

Time Warner is apparently negotiating through the press again, trying to drive up bids on AOL by saying that Yahoo! offered to buy the content piece at $13 billion (this through Julia Angwin and Kevin Delaney at the Journal).  Yahoo! reportedly scoffed at this idea, claiming that it had never made an offer, and that, instead, after the first date at Time Warner headquarters, had jilted them.  So welcome to the business version of who dumped who.

In any case, Time Warner reportedly turned up its nose at Yahoo!'s offer because Yahoo! wanted to pay for the purchase with Internet stock (specifically, Yahoo! stock).  Whatever happens, in other words, Time Warner wants the world to know that it's not going to make THAT mistake again.  Unfortunately, in this case, Time Warner learning from its mistakes is probably itself a mistake, because Yahoo! would make a good partner and Yahoo!'s valuation is a lot more reasonable that AOL's was back in the day.

But, in any case, it sounds as though Yahoo!'s out, Microsoft's less interested, and Google's right in the thick of it.

Disclosure: I own Yahoo! stock.  I have also been dragging the bag of rocks known as Time Warner stock around for years (when I bought it, it was AOL). I own some Microsoft.  I owned Google stock for a few minutes after the IPO, before I gleefully flipped it.  The MacArthur folks will be calling any minute now...