As The Wall Street Journal reports, AOL is in talks to sell ICQ, the once prominent -- but now archaic -- instant messaging service. The Wall Street Journal also says that Bebo, the social network AOL acquired in 2008 for a jaw-dropping $850 million, may be on the block.
In the ensuing 20 months, Bebo hasn't quite turned out to be the profit center AOL hoped it would be. Although traffic was up after a redesign in February, Bebo has continued to languish as European users migrate to Facebook, like the rest of the world.
Spending nearly $1 billion on Bebo -- which at this point is nearly a third of AOL's valuation as a separate entity -- was just one of many, many missteps for the former web titan.
With ICQ, the situation is a bit less embarrassing. AOL acquired ICQ in 1998 for $287 million. At the time, ICQ was a huge competitor to AOL's AIM service, which had only recently become available to non-AOL subscribers. The Wall Street Journal says that ICQ's potential buyer, Facebook investor Digital Sky Technologies, could pay as much as $300 million for the service. That's not bad for a service that has never had a strong association with the AOL brand.