Mega-ISP Update: Layoffs At AOL, Voices At MSN

rfc1394 writes: "There are two articles, the first article, in today's Washington Post, mentioned that AOL, having successfully digested Time Warner, is producing results of that digestion by additionally extruding almost 1,000 people in layoffs due to an anemic advertising market and a need to meet projected revenue goals of about $40 billion. A separate Post article mentions how Microsoft's online service MSN is having a woman named Shelley Reynolds create a series of spoken identifiers for its online service similar to AOL's famous 'You've got mail!' and identifies El Edwards as the man who is the voice behind the phrase. The second article also tells about the effect of sound on people with respect to technology, and the payments involved (Edwards reportedly got about $100; Reynolds will receive something under six figures.)"

Comments

Re:a different interpretation

[mckwant]

Well, I believe you're wrong. Admittedly, future plans can't be valued $1=$1 with current earnings, but initial investors in, say, Amazon, accepted losses with good humor, expecting that the first to market advantage would eventually lead to a preferred market position.

After three years, and no real signs of profitability, I'd suggest that many people viewed it as a failure of execution, and pulled out on that basis. The dotbombs, for the most part, had nothing BUT long term plans, and couldn't make their short-term goals work out. Hence, they got punished. Hard.

One analysis is that the quarterly earnings aren't pulled out of the sky, but are, in fact, negotiated with the analysts over time. You can reposition those numbers as you need to (earnings warnings, etc.), and so long as a company isn't delivering any surprises, they should be OK. The problem lies when the market is surprised by a number, it tends to overreact.