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The Sinking Ship that is AOL

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the bailing-out-the-titanic-with-a-teaspon dept.

EyesWideOpen writes "This article at Salon discusses the ways in which AOL is trying to stay afloat, with the release of version 8.0 of it's software, in a time when AOL (which recently merged with Time Warner) has had a string of bad press -- falling stock prices, SEC investigation, etc. -- attached to it's name. One of my favorite quotes from the article says of AOL: ''It was never really an Internet company. AOL was based on the idea that people needed to live in a halfway house while they became accustomed to the Net.'...If folks can get a better, faster, cheaper online experience by ditching AOL, they'll do it in a heartbeat.'"

4 of 590 comments (clear)

  1. Re:We cannot afford to lose AOL by tetsuo13 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I would mod this as "Paranoid" instead of "Insightful".

    Although, you do make a good point.

  2. Oh, come on!!!! by 2names · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    This should be modded up as funny. Come on mods!!

    --
    "I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
  3. Re:While we all hate AOL by TRACK-YOUR-POSITION · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Yeah, right! The world could not possibly be a stupid enough place to allow a place called "Spazebo, North Dakota" to exist! Nice Try!

  4. Re:It never was an internet company... by Triv · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    I'm still waiting for people to realise that Starbucks has nothing to do with selling coffee and McDonald's has nothing to do with burgers. Both businesses are in the real-estate / branding game. Starbucks sells awful coffee and yet it's a hit. Why? Because it's everywhere - starbucks buys up property left and right, sticks their store-fronts in 'em, and smothers local coffee houses with sheer marketing pressure. There was a great figure in harper's index a few months ago...(looking)...(can't find it. Damnit) well, it basically said that a huge number of Manhattan's hundreds of Starbucks' are within three blocks of another one. I don't think many places can coexist with that kind of marketing pressure.

    Triv