AOL chief Tim Armstrong is reportedly interested in combining the two content companies, now that Carol Bartz has been fired from Yahoo, according to a Friday report.
Bloomberg reported that Armstrong has already held talks with advisers about some sort of deal; both Bloomberg and CNBC, however, also reported that a source at Yahoo told both that Yahoo would be uninterested in anchoring itself to AOL, given its losses and declining revenue.
Representatives at AOL and Yahoo could not be reached for comment.
Yahoo fired Bartz on Sept. 6; although both AOL and Yahoo have ranked in the top ten of Internet reach for the last 15 years, both have faced the challenges of most media companies in capturing eyeballs. To date, Yahoo's most lucrative venture remains a 43 percent stake in Alibaba, which has succeeded in Asia despite scandals involving Alipay.
For its own part, AOL has bought the Huffington Post for $315 million, which brought a lucrative, if sometimes controversial, creator of content into the fold. But the company's reputation took a hit when AOL launched the $20 million CrunchFund with TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, then removed Arrington from editorial responsibilities. It's unclear whether Arrington is still an employee at AOL, or whether he has been fired.
AOL representatives haven't said whether Arrington will appear at the TechCrunch Disrupt show next week, or whether he'll be allowed in.