Is AOL Finally Crashing and Burning? 193
An anonymous reader writes "AOL's disastrous quarterly report showed cash from continuing operations was down 44% from a year ago (adjusted operating income was down 37%), as it continues a rocky transition from monthly subscription fees to advertising. (Their quarterly report also notes 'the cessation of large-scale access subscriber acquisition campaigns' — investor-speak for the fact that AOL will finally stop mass mailings of free trial accounts.) Unfortunately, AOL's advertising business 'did even worse. Its revenues declined by $110 million... every single segment is down.' AOL has already lost 86% of the 30 million subscribers it reported in 2001 — down to just 4.3 million — but advertising hasn't yet filled the gap (possibly because many AOL ads had been displayed to the users AOL no longer has). But at least, as one technology blogger notes, AOL has finally released a mobile application, 'in the new definition of "late to the party."'"
They still mail CDs ?? (Score:2)
They still mail CDs?? Wow, I haven't gotten one in the mail since 2000. Hopefully they will get some new management, either people or new ideas, in time to save the business.
Re:They still mail CDs ?? (Score:4, Interesting)
The CDs often came in very nice cases. I painted some and used them whenever I wanted to hide a burned CD in a geocache.
Future generations won't understand... (Score:4, Funny)
just how funny a list of 101 uses for AOL disks really is.
http://www.joke-archives.com/aol/aoldisk.html [joke-archives.com]
Damn shame, kids won't have anything to shove under the front legs of a pinball machine
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It was pretty cool, actually.
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Re:Future generations won't understand... (Score:4, Informative)
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Honestly, until I saw this story I truly did not know that AOL was still in business. I had assumed they closed up shop sometime about 2004 or 2005.
What do they do now? Are they still selling dial-up service?
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Afaict (based on what i've picked up on /., I don't use them myself and they were never anywhere near as popular on this side of the pond as in america) they do a few things
1: I think* they have a "transit data network" which is one of the tier 1 ISPs (the group of ISPs that all peer with each other and form the top level of the internet)
2: They still sell dialup and in the some places (including the UK where I live) they also offer broadband.
3: They sell a product which lets you access all the AOL services
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America Online operates in Europe?
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It seems my previous post was wrong, they sold the UK ISP to talktalk (talktalk has been buying up lots of ISPs to try and increase thier LLU coverage).
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America Online operates in Europe?
Yep. Though they've only ever been officially known as AOL in their branding over here. They were famous for their badly implemented parental controls when their dial-up services appeared in the UK using said parental controls as a key selling point - their systems would not let you sign up if you were from Scunthorpe, for instance.
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You can access a WWAN anywhere there are human beings residing, and per gigabit it's a lot cheaper than dialup.
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$7/month is also easy to beat if you value your time at all. What's a minimal DSL subscription these days, $20? At 1.5Mb/s, this is still approximately 37 times faster than dial-up.
Doesn't AOL require you to install their bloatware to connect as well? Gross!
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Re:They still mail CDs ?? (Score:5, Funny)
>> I used them as coasters.
Yeah, they fit perfectly in the cupholder on my machine.
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I thank you, kind sir, for much laughter.
Re:They still mail CDs ?? (Score:4, Informative)
The CD's? No, I pretty much hated them. The floppies though? Now those were cool. AOL ensured that no one ever had to actually buy their own disks.
There goes the Eternal September (Score:4, Funny)
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;)
I kid, I kid.
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Me too!
Please add me to the list
I kid, I kid.
No, me kid, you Jane!
Re:There goes the Eternal September (Score:4, Informative)
They already dont. If Eternal September hasn't ended by now then Usenet is screwed. According to Wikipedia article on eternal september [wikipedia.org]:
Best start hunting the source of infection again.
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Thank God. Usenet is finally safe to use again. Let's celebrate by resurrecting the dead skull of Jesus thread.
AO who? (Score:2)
I had no idea they were still around. What the hell do they do? Provide dial-up access?
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Beyond the fact that many websites don't actually run a profit, the ones that do often do because you can trivially run them with fairly low overhead. No big corporate HQ, with lightbulbs and janitors and suits, no fancy press room, just some anonymous httpd processes running at CDNs-R-US and some stringers banging away at their laptops at home. If you are luc
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Indeed, you need about 20 people to run those websites, at most, and maybe $2 million a year, tops. I don't expect ad revenue to be more than about $3 million - $4 million a year, which is enough for a couple people to get rich.
They still have about 5,000 employees, though.
That's 4,980 too many to be supported by their website revenues, and is why they are losing billions with a 'b' dollars every year.
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With luck, they won't go away, they'll just be sold off at a fraction of what they were purchased for. About a 50/50 chance.
Of course, if some executives get in a pissing match over it, all bets are off. I can think of one property (which shall rename nameless) that was actually making a profit, although not enough one to make some people happy. There was a turf war between that property and a semi-competing one, and the decision was made to shut it down.
Some of the insiders who were on the losing side
They're the 'A' in A.I.M. (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, they're the people that run those "AIM" servers that you can access with Pidgin, Trillian, etc.
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Does anybody still use AIM? Wow. That's like using ICQ.
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Does anybody still use AIM? Wow. That's like using ICQ.
Yes. In the world outside of your ten ultra-chic geek friends using XMPP, the vast bulk of people still use AIM.
Trust me, it's a much larger world out here. You'd be afraid of it.
Dominant Businesses (Score:5, Insightful)
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The problem was they were raking it in too thick to want to change until it was too late. The other point is that most companies don't stay in business forever. They have been around 27 years and has made more total profit than 99% of businesses. Their time is just over and I don't think anything can reverse their downward momentum. Last one to leave AOL, please turn off the light.
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The problem was they were raking it in too thick to want to change until it was too late.
Acting like you are secure as #1 is the quickest way to end up in the #2 spot. It's either incompetence, or someone relevant had something to gain by not keeping AOL going.
Re:Dominant Businesses (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are making $200,000 with $1,000,000 bonuses, you have a vested interest in things NOT changing. Many businesses have higher up employees who get bonuses greater than their base salary, and those guys don't want to sacrifice short term profits for long term stability. "Why should I get my bonus cut in half due to reinvestment just to make the business stronger in 10 years, when I likely won't be here?". The bank industry is another example of how this screws up a business. Managers are more worried about their quarterly reports than the long term stability of the company.
This is the prime example of the disadvantage of publicly owned companies. While it is easier to get capital for expansion, privately held companies tend to have longer term thinking. Dominos pizza didn't go public until 2004, and did an excellent job of expanding before then. Chick-fil-A is privately held and the 2nd largest chicken restaurant chain the in US and wildly profitable due to a long term approach to business. There are other examples as well. AOL is the counterexample, where they focused on short term gains and had little (or poorly thought out) long term planning.
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In-N-Out Burger is another one you've probably never heard of if you haven't been to the southwest. Easily the most popular fast food joint in several large cities, yet there are only a handful of them because it isn't just privately owned, it's family owned. No franchising, and probably never will be any.
They treat their employees like gold too. Have you ever heard of a fast food place that pays its managers $100,000 a year to start? Assistant managers start at a little under $60,000. Part-time worker
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Make sure to get your burger "Animal Style"
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In-N-Out Burger is what McDonalds was originally. A simple burger joint that excelled at their small menu.
here in northern California, you will often see the street backed up with cars waiting to get to the drive through. Very popular.
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It's also one of the great inefficiencies in the market. AOL is still alive on nothing but inertia. The amount they're pissing away on fat executive bonuses and CDs for the landfill while they ignore the inevitable would be enough to fully fund HUNDREDS of lean and mean startups (even to .com levels) with innovative ideas.
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It almost seems you are talking about Microsoft (yet, whether the OS market ever changes is to be seen, having an exclusive API is a powerful thing).
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I think the companies that *don't* reign on top are also unable to adapt. Most companies do one thing well (at most) - ever - and if that one thing happens to intersect over time with what the market wants, they're successful for as long as that intersection lasts.
Can't say I'm sorry to see them go (Score:2)
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But then again the main reason I hate them is because I'm a wrestling fan and they got wrestling taken off of TBS.
Apparently TBS is a Turner-owned TV station, who got bought by Time Warner at some point, so it's probably more accurate to say that they had a common parent- except that AOL was sold off by them at the end of 2009, so it doesn't affect them any more. Though I assume they lost assloads on the ludicrous price they paid for it at the height of the dotcom boom anyway.
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Apparently TBS is a Turner-owned TV station, who got bought by Time Warner at some point, so it's probably more accurate to say that they had a common parent- except that AOL was sold off by them at the end of 2009, so it doesn't affect them any more. Though I assume they lost assloads on the ludicrous price they paid for it at the height of the dotcom boom anyway.
Technically, AOL bought Time Warner, and Ted Turner was a significant owner of Time Warner at the time coming in with acqui
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I hate to inform you, but if you mean WCW/WWF style wrestling, it's hardly "all but gone." The WWE is more popular than ever, TNA Wrestling is picking up steam, and smaller circuits are proliferating. The... "sport" is at an all-time high.
You've Got Fail! (Score:2, Insightful)
email accounts (Score:3, Interesting)
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All companies come and go. (Score:2, Funny)
Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Tumblr and all the current web 2.5 (2.0 was years ago) will be replaced by the next "Big Thing", and AOL might come back as the you nostalgia you lose ISP. In 2020 you will see AOL CDs with new FirefAOL 7.0 with 1 Quadrillion free nanoseconds nanogigabit internet access for your MacOS Liger and Windows 9ista.
Also Linux will still have 0.8% market share.
About freaking time (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe they should go into chat rooms and ask for help...with the CAPS lock on, of course.
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Gawd. Don't make me remember about irc back when AOL users were let onto the internet. /me slaps you with a wet trout and stuff
See patch.com (Score:3, Informative)
"This year, AOL is spending $50 million to expand Patch nationally to hundreds of sites by the end of the year."
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/08/05/with_patch_aol_offers_challenge_to_local_news/?page=full [boston.com]
AOL is going hyperlocal - going to give local newspapers a run for their money.
It's Time (Score:2)
AOL has always been behind the curve. They were the last BBS on the planet to hook up to the internet, and they've had a 90's retro feel ever since.
It's time to put AOL out of its and its users' misery.
AOL will never be gone. (Score:2)
To use a quote from Iron Maiden: Only the good die young, all the evil seems to live forever.
So I think AOL will be here to stay.
One way they have stayed afloat. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Around so long that... (Score:2)
I know a guy who has had an AOL account so long that in the early days it was hard-coded into the software.
CAN you even subscribe? (Score:2)
If I go to the AOL homepage, there's just a bunch of news and articles. There's no option to subscribe. Heck, do they even still have an AOL client?
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Click the download link, and you can get to AOL v9.5 [aol.com], starting at $9.99/mo.
I worked Customer Retention there in 2002. Read on (Score:5, Interesting)
Brings back memories. People would call up, wait on hold for half an hour or more and end up on a call with me or any other SAVES rep:
*ping* (female phone voice) AOL. Saves. [connect]
Me: Thank you for calling America Online, this is Pezbian. How can I help you have an even better online experience today?
Luser: Cancel my account. (yeah. So original.)
What I'd say while playing Solitaire on the computer: I'm sorry to hear things aren't going well for you. Let's get started.
What I'd be thinking: Okay so what are you? Computer-stupid, no longer in need of training wheels, sick of overpaying or just trying to make a stand?
From there, it was a matter of talking them into staying. I probably gave away a lifetime worth of free service months in two month blocks during the few months I was there. Did it matter? No, and I'll explain why later. If you were a jerk, you got transferred or hung up on. We were taught never to hang up on lusers, but disconnecting the cord from the back of the phone didn't count as a hangup. I did it a couple dozen times when I'd get cursed at. There were often logs from previous support reps in the Merlin system regarding customer behavior so I pretty well knew who was going to be trouble and who was going to get free stuff.
At the end of the call, there were sometimes these "Special Member Benefits" where lusers would hear a speil for something else. I got $1.25 if they would just listen to it. Some people were wise. "Do you get a bonus if I just listen to it?" "Yes I do." "Well since you've helped me so much, you're going to get that bonus." Schweet. While I was there, the SMB was a Sprint long distance deal. Yeah, for a landline. Remember those? I probably got $200 a month just off of those transfers.
Pay: $8 an hour plus bonuses. Bonuses... boy howdy... 80+% of your income. I didn't believe it until I got my first 90-day long-term retention check. That's correct. Your long-term retention bonus was on a 90 day scale. Not a year. Why? Ultimately, it was because the revenue generated by each user for AOL was $125 a month. That's on top of the $23.90 a month they were charging for you to be their lab rat.
I wasn't delusional enough to expect the crazy bonus checks to last forever since the dollars for banner ads (no matter how attention-whoring/seizure-inducing) boom was already crashing hard and popups/pop-unders were starting to become the norm.
The funniest thing about working there was the special event days they'd have where Warner Bros movies that were still in theaters were screened in the call center during work hours. The techs and everyone but SAVES would be watching while SAVES saw it as a distraction from the big money. Some reps were making six figures a year. I kid you not. You were on a tiered scale where you were paid for saves per month and the more you got, the more each one paid you. Those who were making that kind of money had little time for anything else, however. 12-16 hour days non-stop. One lady hadn't had a day off in three months and slept at work sometimes, but she did make $125,000 a year this way.
In the middle of my time there, an "All Hands" meeting was called where everyone in the callcenter went to a big reception center and got put through a big dog and pony show. It was mostly about a new SAVES pay scale change that was more focused on quantity than quality. This wasn't beneficial to my style. I was all about long term. I didn't care about the average $1.50 24-hour or pissant $.50 30-day retention bonuses. I was all about the 90-day kind that paid like $9 each if I remember correctly. I was going to take a big hit on my paychecks to the extent that it just wasn't worth keeping that job.
It's worth mentioning that, during the Q&A portion, a butthurt tech dared ask when the tech support people were going to be paid like Saves reps. The suit on stage snickered slightly while the question was met with groans and laughter from Saves goons like myself. The
AOL: non-hereditary expression of stupidity? (Score:2)
The dumb people who were young once and used AOL have simply not bred children who will also use AOL.
AOL has no purpose.
Given I have an Internet connection, what would be my reason to connect anything to a server in the AOL domain?
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Elsewhere I mention my time as a retention rep for AOL. Relevant to both that experience and your post, here's a story:
When I started working for AOL, I already had Internet service through Comcast. While training, I asked if they seriously expected me to get a landline just so I could dial up via 56k modem when I had a 3mbps line already. Nope.
They had the option where you could (oh wow...) run AOL over your existing connection for the same $23.90 (at the time) price. That's right. Run my free AOL emp
How is the stock still trading? (Score:2)
How does this stock still trade? Looking at the steadily declining graphs of subscribers and revenue, how can anyone think this is a good investment? Who is buying?
I guess it's one of the unspoken rules of the free market; If money can move freely, it can move stupidly.
Oh how times change. (Score:3, Interesting)
I just realized I'm entirely dependent on AIM. My favorite gadget blog is Engadget. Owned by AOL.
I don't want AOL to die. :(.
October (Score:2)
The October that never came finally arrived?
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
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"So what would you do if you were running AOL?"
It's too late. The relentless determination to suck despite years of criticism is irreversible.
The brand is tainted, sell it off.
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A friend on AOL... Sure.... Actually I have a friend I have been trying to get off of AOHell for years. All you can do is try to teach them about the "Real" internet and introduce them to Firefox or Chrome and whatever email program of they don't want to use web based email. Also remember to secure their computer real good because AOL has been doing the babysitting for them and they will be in the wild wild intertubes!
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I don't get it... I'm trying to go to AOL keyword Chrome but it's just the site for some brand of car wax.
Re:What would you do? (Score:5, Insightful)
FTFA:
Tim Armstrong, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "Although we have much more significant goals for the future of AOL, we are pleased with this quarter's internal and external trends."
According to the report they went from a $90M net profit last year to a $1B net loss this year. I'm glad the CEO is pleased, but If I worked there I'd be looking for another job.
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According to the report they went from a $90M net profit last year to a $1B net loss this year. I'm glad the CEO is pleased, but If I worked there I'd be looking for another job.
They do show a huge change and did have some decline in revenue, but the change is mostly from one huge item there this time that wasn't last year, a 1.4 billion dollar charge marked "Goodwill". I don't think it's actually a measure of how much people hate them but...??
It looks like a number just pulled out of a hat or someplace na
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Certainly not the last one - apple lost $1.8bn two years running in the mid 90s, and that's not even adjusted for inflation.
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Certainly not the last one - apple lost $1.8bn two years running in the mid 90s, and that's not even adjusted for inflation.
There you go, it's the exception that proves the rule.
(It's a good thing nobody actually knows what that expression means, or I'd sound like an idiot!)
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Er, even if it's true that no one knows what that means, it doesn't take an Einstein to query "What rule?" So you still sound like an idiot. :p
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Yes, yes it has, twice, in the mid ninties, when it lost $1.8bn per year, two years running.
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Re:What would you do? (Score:5, Funny)
The CEO will probably be paid a large bonus whether he drives the company out of existence...
If the CEO is able to drive AOL out of existence, he deserves to get paid a large bonus for such a tremendous public service.
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The CEO will probably be paid a large bonus whether he drives the company out of existence...
If the CEO is able to drive AOL out of existence, he deserves to get paid a large bonus for such a tremendous public service.
I have no idea why you were modded Funny... I would have went with +1 Insightful - though I guess the truth can be funny at times. ;-)
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I work for another tech company not far from AOL in Dulles where a few of AOL's "managers" have migrated.
Sunrocket.com [wikipedia.org] was mostly run by ex-AOL managers. "Epic Fail" is about the only way to describe that decision.
In my experience, the majority of AOL techies are top notch (At least the ones in Dulles. Don't even get me started about the clowns from Bangalore).
Management, on the other hand... well, there are some (not many) good ones, but within AOL they're hamstrung by the poisonous corporate culture. The bad ones carry the taint of that culture elsewhere and infect other companies with it.
Re:What would you do? (Score:5, Interesting)
Cash in on the Web 2.0 fad. Hire a hundred bloggers to blog all day long. Turn AOL.com into a huge social network, rivaling Facebook. Everyone with an AOL account is automatically added to the social network, with all privacy defaults set to "disallow all but my friends". Advertise on television that AOL is now web 2.0, more private than Facebook, and hiring bloggers.
Do they still own the Netscape brand? If so, I'd resurrect it. Make a bootable Linux CD-ROM that has Firefox on it, connects to AOL, and uses KDE as a desktop. Put them in computer stores and gaming stores. Sell them for $1 or make them free.
They could still make it through this.
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Everyone with an AOL account is automatically added to the social network, with all privacy defaults set to "disallow all but my friends".
Just to clarify... that would include AIM-only accounts. I know plenty of people that were never full AOL members but still have (or have access to) AIM accounts. And the more FB chat sucks, the more people are returning every once in a while to the dedicated IM land of buddy lists.
Good reason to buy back ICQ... Oh, and maybe make an investment in Skype too.
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Oh man, AIM. Let me tell you, seeing AIM running on someone's computer allows you to instantaneously gauge them as a total ignoramus. Very handy.
If you must have "instant messaging" then go with XMPP. Meanwhile anyone who's anyone is still using IRC, forever the greatest and only text chat for netizens.
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Oh man, AIM. Let me tell you, seeing AIM running on someone's computer allows you to instantaneously gauge them as a total ignoramus. Very handy.
If you must have "instant messaging" then go with XMPP. Meanwhile anyone who's anyone is still using IRC, forever the greatest and only text chat for netizens.
Well, the point is... having an AIM account, not necessarily using the AIM client. But then, a true geek recognizes there are different tools for different jobs :) FTR I use both IRC and AIM (and MSN, and ICQ)... and I hate integrated clients.
Re:What would you do? (Score:5, Informative)
Cash in on the Web 2.0 fad. Hire a hundred bloggers to blog all day long. Turn AOL.com into a huge social network, rivaling Facebook
They tried this, multiple times. And failed, multiple times. I know, I was deeply involved with the effort. First came AIMPages.com. Millions of dollars spent, negligible uptake. Then they tried building another social network based off of the old Member Directory. That never even made it out the door. Then they bought Bebo for about 5x what it was worth and only succeeded in driving away those customers it already had.
There are a lot of really smart people at AOL down in the trenches -- some of the most knowledgeable DBAs, SAs, and developers I've worked with in 20 years I met at AOL. Most of the smart ones fled or got laid off but I still know a few of the good ones who are still there, and they are the only reason anything at AOL works at all.
Executive leadership is lacking, to say the least, and they cripple every product by trying to emulate every feature a competitor has without understanding that "actually working" and "not being slow as crap" are essential features for any product. If AOL was building houses, you'd have 3 dozen managers obsessing over having marble counters, oak cabinets, and Italian tile floors, and ignoring the workers who were telling them that the roof leaked, the plumbing backed up, and the foundation was cracked.
Netscape? They pretty well killed that brand off years ago. They bought Netscape for the traffic going to the portal site, which is why they created the Mozilla foundation and dropped the browser code like a hot potato. And the traffic that they paid so much to get? 90% of it was gone within a year of the takeover. They made a half-assed attempt to resurrect it as a Digg-style social networking site, but that took off like a lead balloon.
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Oh well. Seems like there should be something that can be done with all those user accounts. Bringing in new management could only help, if they're that incompetent.
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Actually, the new CEO (Ted Armstrong) is a LOT better than the old management team of CEO Randy "I don't use email" Falco and President Ron Grant (AKA Smithers & Burns). An inanimate carbon rod would have been better than Smithers & Burns, but that's besides the point.
Frankly, I doubt anyone can save AOL at this point. The corporate culture is too dysfunctional and resistant to change, there's too much baggage from obsolete legacy systems, and too many "leaders" who are either incompetent empire b
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AOL's bumbling foray into "social media" was their acquisition of Bebo [wikipedia.org]. They paid $850 million in 2008 and sold it in 2010 (26 months later) for $10 million.
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Screw it I'm going to web 11.0!!! I want 3D Live Streaming Video Chat, 3D video games, 3D Pictures and 3D Porn!!!
lol Someday soon half of the crap I just posted will be true...
Re:What would you do? (Score:4, Funny)
I've heard there are some good tractor trailer training schools out there ...
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So what would you do if you were running AOL?
I would rename it to Quantum Link and start advertising to C64 users. At the rate they are going it would be more profitable than their current path, and it would certainly bring them less ridicule.
My implications... (Score:2, Troll)
Loved your post about your AOL work experience, Pezbian. It's the kind of writing that keeps me reading through the inane general comments on Slashdot looking for gems like yours.
You imply all Americans deserve to lose everything because a few douchbags got greedy?
I'm sure your homeland is a paragon of civility, honor and integrity. You're such a shining example, after all.
Smells like Eurotrash, long as we're making sweeping generalizations here.
I've lived in the USA all of my life. I've met a w
You travel but you don't look (Score:2)
It seems your times traveling was wasted on you. Do you find people accusing you of not being a good listener? Do you overlook things that more observant people recognize immediately?
You try hard to stress that you're an expert on America, but a lot of what you say does not ring true. So while I believe that you believe you're an expert, I doubt you really are in reality.
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So, OTOH, you think what such "few douchbags" do eveyrwhere is not, more or less, a reflection of given society?
From where do you think they come? Do you think that "ordinary people" despise and distant themselves from such ways, even when given the opportunity?
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Granted, Winamp is basically completely mature right now and I can't think of any more features I want. I just hope when newer operating systems are released, Winamp will still work, or that someone will take over for the occasional bugfix.
Also, iTunes and WMP work well enough for me since versions 9 and 11, respectively - when they became pretty full-featured and fast. But I still love me some Wi