AOL Cutting 2000 Additional Jobs

butterwise writes "AOL plans to cut 2,000 jobs, or 20 percent of its worldwide workforce, as the Internet division focuses on advertising sales to make up for subscriber losses. 'The latest cuts will pare AOL's staff to 8,000, down from about 18,000 employees in 2001, when the company bought New-York based Time Warner for $124 billion. The combination led to $100 billion in losses and a more than 60 percent drop in Time Warner's stock as customers dropped dial-up Web access.'"

Comments

People still use AOL?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why???

Re:People still use AOL?

[moore.dustin]

They do not know any better, it is as simple as that really. They either do now know other options exist, think the service is the same, or for many they are to lazy to break their ties with AOL thinking they will lose their email, aim, and other things AOL gives them.

I have asked numerous people why they still have AOL over the years and almost all of them said that they have had it for so long that they are uncomfortable changing for whatever reason. AOL does a great job locking its customers into its systems and making it seem counter-intuitive to switch.

Re:People still use AOL?

[vux984]

I have asked numerous people why they still have AOL over the years and almost all of them said that they have had it for so long that they are uncomfortable changing for whatever reason. AOL does a great job locking its customers into its systems and making it seem counter-intuitive to switch.

don't blame AOL for customers being 'comfortable'.

That's the same reason most people give for using Eudora or Pegasus mail clients. Its not that these companies/products have 'locked customers in' or made it counter intuitive to switch, its simply that people have gotten comfortable, and they don't perceive enough value in changing.

(Not that there is anything wrong with Eudora or Pegasus. But most people using it aren't "choosing to use it", its simply the case that they've used it for so long its just what they use, it works, and they don't want any hassles.)

Re:People still use AOL?

[BiggyP]

Yep, people still use AOL for the same reasons that people still use Windows, they'd terrified of change, for these poor souls their entire experience of the Internet is just what AOL and it's massively bloated software suite has presented them with. Hopefully these users will feel suitably alienated and outraged by change in upcoming versions of the AOL software that they'll consider a move to something less proprietary and start to experience the internet the same way everyone else does.

Oddly enough, even when it's quite blatantly obvious, AOL users are often hesitant to blame the AOL browser and crapware for dreadful system performance and are happy to pay through the nose for bandwidth upgrades that they never see any benefit from...

Re:People still use AOL?

[Rycross]

Their software wasn't just bloated, it was terribly buggy as well. Around 2001, I had a job at a help desk at a university. Sometimes we had people come in who had installed AOL's software on their Windows PC (usually 98 se), and then tried to connect to the university dial-up. The AOL software somehow managed to screw up something with Window's networking. Sometimes we had to do a reinstall of the networking components just to get things to work correctly again, even if they had already uninstalled all the AOL stuff.

Re:People still use AOL?

[peragrin]

My boss does. $20 bucks a month we get charged just so she can use the "internet" as she likes too.

When she got a new computer running windows XP, I made sure to "install AOL". In reality I set AOL.com as her IE 7 home page, changed the shortcut icon and name, and locked down bits and pieces of the browser the best I could. Installing the abomination that is AIM completes the illusion. she has had a hard time adapting to the "new"AOL but accepts it as is.

We do still pay $20 bucks a month for AOL though. I can't seem to break that one out. At least the book keeper is helping me.

Re:People still use AOL?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because you can't take your aol email account with you. We need email address portability! Gah thinking about that as an idea makes my head wanna plode.

Re:People still use AOL?

[Kenshin]

Actually, trying to migrate from Eudora to ANYTHING is a pain in the ass. Users are essentially locked-in because the file format they use for storing messages is so botched that nothing can properly import it.

We have a guy at the office who really wants to switch to Outlook, but we just can't transfer over his messages from Eudora.

Re:People still use AOL?

[Amouth]

hummmm Eudora supports Imap.. he could jsut use that to connect to exchange and then move his messges into the imap storage via Eudora and then open up outlook.. not that hard.. (i assume you have exchange sence he is wanting to move to outlook)

Re:People still use AOL?

[piojo]

We have a guy at the office who really wants to switch to Outlook, but we just can't transfer over his messages from Eudora. When I have problems like this, I use an IMAP account. This type of account stores messages on the server, rather than locally. Copy all the old messages to the IMAP account, kiss Eudora goodbye, set up Outlook and set up your two accounts (your normal e-mail account and the IMAP), and transfer your beloved messages back from the IMAP to Outlook. When I have to do this, I use a local IMAP server (running on the same computer as the e-mail clients), but that might be a bit too much for a lot of people. Perhaps your sysadmin could help, if you don't have easy access to an IMAP e-mail account.

Re:People still use AOL?

[Stormwatch]

We have a guy at the office who really wants to switch to Outlook

And is that supposed to be an improvement?

Re:People still use AOL?

[Anonymous Coward]

They do not know any better

This is it completely. Actually, if you talk to many AOL subscribers I think you would find that many of them don't know/understand that AOL != The Internet. I used to be an AOL subscriber many moons ago (yes, I'll admit that - but only as an AC!) and it took me awhile to understand that.

Re:People still use AOL?

[Ucklak]

It's funny you mentioned that.

I have a relative that has been comfortable with Windows since 3.1 and finally got fed up with it and went Mac.
Their machine died and they were either going to have to learn Vista which has a bad rep from word of mouth in their community (2 neighbors that upgraded hate it) or go Mac which had a good rep.
Thunderbird (Mozilla mail before that, Netscape before that) and Firefox (Mozilla before that and Netscape before that) work like they expect it to so they really don't notice a difference except that iPhoto is much better than their Windows photo management they used before.

Re:People still use AOL?

[westlake]

don't blame AOL for customers being 'comfortable'.

AOL was among the first to profit from the discovery that the future of online services didn't lie with the Geek - and with a half-dozen or more arcane clients for the BBS, FTP, TELNET, USENET, IRC chat, etc.

AOL pioneered flat monthly rates, automatic updates. There were perfectly intelligible reasons why users became comfortable with dial-up AOL and why they remain comfortable with portals like Yahoo now.

Re:People still use AOL?

[stewbacca]

And even though they bought a Mac, they can be comfortable knowing they can even use AOL on a Mac (well, for however long AOL lasts).

Re:People still use AOL?

[Ilgaz]

Actually, trying to migrate from Eudora to ANYTHING is a pain in the ass. Users are essentially locked-in because the file format they use for storing messages is so botched that nothing can properly import it.

We have a guy at the office who really wants to switch to Outlook, but we just can't transfer over his messages from Eudora. Eudora uses standard MBOX format, that is why it was(and still) the choice for multi platform scenarios.

Actually there are many tools which can import Eudora data well.

Open the files with a text editor, you will see they are pure text.

Re:People still use AOL?

[Pollardito]

Why??? because they're still on the phone trying to cancel their service, but that guy won't let them until they answer a few more questions. hopefully they were equally tenacious when their boss came to let them go

Re:People still use AOL?

[DrXym]

Yep, people still use AOL for the same reasons that people still use Windows, they'd terrified of change, for these poor souls their entire experience of the Internet is just what AOL and it's massively bloated software suite has presented them with. Hopefully these users will feel suitably alienated and outraged by change in upcoming versions of the AOL software that they'll consider a move to something less proprietary and start to experience the internet the same way everyone else does.

That or they don't see value in changing. Either because there is none (for them), or because the effort involved does not justify the value in moving.

As for Windows users... I expect a great many people use Windows is because they want to do stuff and Windows provides a reasonably painless way to do lots of things. If Linux wants to gain converts, the way is not by telling people "[they're] terrified of change", but by offering a compelling alternative. What is so compelling about Linux and how do you persuade people to undergo the trauma of switching? Most Linux distributions are not compelling and most can be a pain in the ass to use if you are not an expert. Ubuntu Linux shows Linux can be simple and they're making great strides, but that is no reason to arrogantly assume people don't switch Windows because they're afraid. If you want them to test the waters, it would be more sensible to advocate trying OpenOffice, Firefox or whatever and benefit from open source apps even if they want to stick with Windows. It means the next time they consider an OS and see the same apps run on Linux as they've been using on Windows they mightn't be so scared of changing.

Of course you might have been referring to OS X which IMO has its own issues such as requiring someone not only to switch operating systems but also buy proprietary and comparatively expensive hardware to run it on. OS X isn't particularly easier that Vista either.

Re:People still use AOL?

[Anonymous Coward]

With regard to Windows, I think the average user refuses to change for two reasons either they don't care or don't know. In the case of AOL, sure the "average" user knows there are alternative out there, but my guess is they use their internet connection for very specific things - checking e-mail primarily.

Oddly enough, even when it's quite blatantly obvious, AOL users are often hesitant to blame the AOL browser and crapware for dreadful system performance and are happy to pay through the nose for bandwidth upgrades that they never see any benefit from... Also, I doubt the "average user" knows anything about different browsers or crapware. They probably have no frame of reference.

Sorry for stating the obvious - But the average user (who I assume still uses AOL) is not you.

Re:People still use AOL?

[KDR_11k]

I used to have AOL back in the 28.8k days (well, my parents had it, I don't think I was very old at the time). I knew AOL wasn't the internet because in the AOL front-end I'd have to click "Internet" every time I wanted to get anywhere useful instead of whatever crap AOL had available. That annoyed me...

Re:People still use AOL?

[BiggyP]

You're really talking to the wrong person here, i'm well aware of how important it is to introduce windows users to FOSS on their own terms, it's something i've been encouraging for a while...

As for the Mac, if you're going to make such a dramatic shift in computing platform it may as well be a free one over the heavily proprietary option, mac users have historically been living in the same kind of bubble as AOL users, they happily use whatever the company in charge gives them and question nothing.

*pours a 40 over their carcasses*

[Anonymous Coward]

Time warner!!!!!

Why have you forsaken us!!!!

NO!!!!!

Motto

[Stanistani]

"AOL - because online discourse is too intelligent."

I'm sure that these are mostly support positions, not the chimps who set policy.

Re:Motto

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, if only the online discourse could be like /. or another random forum, where there are no idiots or trolls. :)

Obligatory:

[oahazmatt]

Boss to Employees: "Goodbye".

There, now it's out of the way.

Re:Obligatory:

[eln]

You've got a pink slip!

For more information, go to AOL Keyword: Unemployment

Re:Obligatory:

[ThePlague]

Me too!

Re:Obligatory:

[TheGeneration]

I had a friend who worked for AOL. He had bad story after bad story. Apparently their biggest problem is that the execs in Virginia are in an AOL only universe and have no idea that Silicon Valley (not Virginia) sets the pace for the internet.

I'm willing to bet every single person they lay off is a regular employee and not the management responsible for turning a one-time good service (circa 1996) into a cluster f*ck of bad UI design and pop-up ads.

I recently used a 6 month free trial that came with my computer and only logged in twice in six months. It was so awful. Their core competency is their chat, yet it's antiquated and difficult to use. Instead of spending money on making their cheat more usable for the users they instead spent on "channels" and other "value" features that really have zero value to anybody but advertisers desperate to reach mindless idiots.

In the end when I called to cancel my free trial at the end of the six months they converted me to a "free account." I still haven't logged in, even free AOL doesn't provide a value proposition that is worth accepting their free services. That's how bad their UI has gotten.

Ultimately the responsibility for this cluster f*ck lays with the CEO of Time Warner. Long ago he should have fired all of the Virginia staff and opened more offices in the ultra competitive and internet-centric Silicon Valley. Out in Virginia they miss out on the buzz of what's new and coming, they miss out on the general savy of the entire software engineering and web design community in Silicon Valley. In Virginia the pool of GOOD web designers and engineers must be tiny.

Re:Obligatory:

[cHiphead]

I used to work at AOL. I agree with every part except the last part. Time Warner related execs should've all been f'ing fired for letting AOL "buy" them with a merger of overvalued stock options in the first place. AOL had its chance to turn things completely around but the pointy hairs in charge wouldn't listen one bit to reason or common sense, the p-o-s aol 'client' was too precious to do away with due to its perceived 'value' to the marketing and advertising data mining. Ah the sweet irony of their crash and burn, just took a few years longer than expected.

Frankly, Silicon Valley can go f*ck itself as far as the rest of us geeks with (somewhat) affordable housing is concerned. ;)

I wish Google would just buy AOL out already, it'd be a real fire sale in terms of the value of the user correlated data mining.

Cheers.

Re:Obligatory:

[TheGeneration]

I'm not saying there aren't good software engineers and web developers outside of the bay area. I'm just saying that pool is severely limited. In addition being outside the bay area means you don't have your ear to the ground hearing the far off drum beat of the most promising future techs.

Those are two important ways that Silicon Valley companies have advantages in the tech industry.

Re:Obligatory:

[stewbacca]

Except they accidentally deleted the email that said they were fired because it was buried in porn and prescription meds emails.

Re:Obligatory:

[SageMusings]

I'm not saying there aren't good software engineers and web developers outside of the bay area. I'm just saying that pool is severely limited

Now there's a sweeping generalization. How did you arrive at that?

Re:Obligatory:

[timeOday]

AOL had its chance to turn things completely around

What, by convincing everybody that dialup is better than broadband after all? Time Warner bought in just as AOL's core competency (dialup for Internet novices) was rapidly becoming obsolete.

Re:Obligatory:

[oatworm]

No no... he's absolutely right!

Re:Obligatory:

[TheGeneration]

Yeah you MIT wankers can keep on keepin on. I'll see you once you wake from your wet dream and decide that living in your parents basement just might not be better than admitting that Silicon Valley is where the money is at.

Re:Obligatory:

[Anubis350]

Yeah, 'cause there aren't any engineers at all in the heart of the the world's financial and corporate hub....

Re:Obligatory:

[oahazmatt]

I have to agree with you on the most part, as most of the information I've seen from Time Warner and former Time Warner employees seems to indicated that AOL executives with too much influence have ruined a great many products Time Warner used to have. Hell, CNN went from industry standard to joke in the span of a month and has never really recovered.

Re:Obligatory:

[stuntpope]

In Virginia the pool of GOOD web designers and engineers must be tiny. Because AOL has, in your opinion, poor design, and because you had a bad experience with an AOL account, you make that conclusion about the talent pool in Virginia? And I suppose one of the best employment markets in the entire country, with some of the highest living standards and educational levels, couldn't attract people with talent? And as another poster noted, NYC is another high-tech hub. The high tech world doesn't revolve around Silicon Valley.

Re:Obligatory:

[cHiphead]

There was internal polling about technology direction, everyone I knew said drop the goddamn client and start development of a real ISP, AOL could've been the new media AND communications platform with internet, phone, tv, etc, etc if they had played it right from the start.

I feel sorry for the canned individuals

[davebarnes]

But, I don't feel sorry for AOL.
So easy to hate them for their horrible business practices.
May they disappear into dust.

Re:I feel sorry for the canned individuals

[Dragonshed]

>I feel sorry for the canned individuals

I pity the ones that didn't see this coming.

Re:I feel sorry for the canned individuals

[Anonymous Coward]

But what will people set their icy cold canned beverages on when those free coasters no longer arrive in the mail?

Re:I feel sorry for the canned individuals

[nwbvt]

"I feel sorry for the canned individuals"

Don't. I'm not trying to sound mean, but there is really no reason to feel sorry for them. They get 2 months of severance pay and get to get out before things really get bad (read, bankruptcy). Plus now that they are no longer working for AOL, maybe their neighbors will be willing to befriend them again. They are the lucky ones.

Re:I feel sorry for the canned individuals

[mh1997]

I feel sorry for the canned individuals But, I don't feel sorry for AOL.

Huh? AOL is a corporation, not a person, it exists on paper. The actions of the corporation are controlled by the individuals (people). So, no you should not feel sorry for the piece of paper that says AOL is a legal entity, nor should you feel sorry for the individuals that caused the behavior that makes you not like AOL.

Whenever someone loses their job, for cause or not, I feel sad because that person's life is now a mess and there are probably several innocent beings that rely on the now unemployed person's income (spouse/kids/dog).

AOL - TOL

[Sub Zero 992]

A once crap company company now becoming truly crap: trailerpark online

Happy now?

[Scottoest]

I blame this on all of you Slashdotters. For years you just HAD to casually point out how crummy their service is, and how morally repugnant their business practices are, and now look at what has happened!

Have you no morals? Will you not rest, until every poor person working for an underwhelming ISP has lost their job?

For shame, Slashdot!

- Scott

Re:Happy now?

[Nairanvac]

LEAVE AOL ALONE!

Re:Happy now?

[Scottoest]

I mean it. If you want to talk to AOL, you go through ME.

You're lucky it even SUCKED for you BASTARDS.

- Scott

Re:Happy now?

[AuMatar]

AOL on Windows ME? I wouldn't do that to my worst enemy!

Re:Happy now?

[rtb61]

Of course AOL -> Netscape -> Mozilla -> Firefox, so not all that bad (unless of course you happen to be an IE fundamentalist) ;). What is happening is the web, just like computers is settling down and consolidating. For every player that is tightening their belts there will be dozens disappearing.

So for AOL Time Warner to move ahead, they will simply have to adjust their business strategies and diversify their involvement in the whole internet/computer technology arena.

A lot of companies find that adjustment difficult, M$ lose money with MSN and tried to buy yahoo and google were losing with google video and had to buy youtube amongst others. So inflated share value allows a buying spree to make up for a lack of core management skills, well, at least for a while.

It has been the same for all new industries, boats, cars, planes etc.

AOL and TW Merged

[RajivSLK]

AOL didn't buy Time Warner, they merged in what was widely consider one of the blunders of the "dot com era". A blunder for TW that is. It is also considered one the smartest things AOL CEO Steve Case ever did. Many people believe that he pulled the wool of Time Warner's eyes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner

Re:AOL and TW Merged

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read the link you gave, you will come across the following:

"In 2000, a new company called AOL Time Warner was created when AOL purchased Time Warner for US$164bn."

Re:AOL and TW Merged

[Chris_Stankowitz]

According to the Wiki you linked they were bought, but it was done in a merger fashion.

"In 2000, a new company called AOL Time Warner was created when AOL purchased Time Warner for US$164bn.[3] The deal, announced on 10 January 2000[4] and officially filed on 11 February 2000,[5] employed a merger structure in which each original company merged into a newly created entity."

Re:AOL and TW Merged

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not how everyone views it.

After the merger TW shut Case out of management decisions. Then they ruined what they didn't know how to run.

Anybody who thinks Case pulled the wool over the eyes of some of the most senior business people in the country has the wool pulled over their own eyes.

Re:AOL and TW Merged

[SevenDigitUID]

Any insight into how AOL had 164 billion dollars? I mean, even if they started with 300 billion, after sending me all those Floppies and CDs over the years how could they have anything left over?

Re:AOL and TW Merged

[StikyPad]

He said "pull the wool of their eyes." It's like the strings of their heart, only softer and with a higher risk of retinal damage.

Re:AOL and TW Merged

[eln]

Overinflated stock value. Remember, this was in early 2000, when the bubble was still very much inflated. It didn't start to really burst until later that year.

Re:AOL and TW Merged

[eln]

Case took his overinflated stock and bought a huge media company with it, and got himself a very nice golden parachute right before the bottom fell out of the tech sector. I don't expect to see him washing windshields on a street corner any time soon.

AOL was a dialup company struggling to find its way in a world that was rapidly moving to broadband. The company's future was not nearly as bright as its past, and its stock would have plummeted even worse had it not managed to pick up a giant old media property before everything went to hell. Time Warner didn't kill AOL, it was already dying before TW got there. I think AOL's management recognized this, but TW's management didn't see it until it was too late, and they're the ones that got stuck trying to save a company that was circling the drain.

Re:AOL and TW Merged

[ranson]

Sorry, you are wrong. AOL did, in fact, acquire (read: purchase) Time Warner.

Re:AOL and TW Merged

[davidsyes]

"Many people believe that he pulled the wool of Time Warner's eyes."

OUCH! That must have hurt, spinning a new Case (of) yarn like that...

Re:AOL and TW Merged

[davidsyes]

Well, WHO was the top partner?

(I'm thinking of the merger picture from I think an Economist or National Geographic or other mag, from about 1994, when two companies "merged"... There was a hand-written caption "Who is the top partner"... It was posted in the Shipping/Receiving/Mail Room area of Bay Networks where I temped back then.)

(And, to go to the way-back machine, to pull some words from Hall & Oates' "Did It in a Minute"... "If TWO become ONE, who is the ONE TWO beCOMES?"...)

Re:AOL and TW Merged

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, how on earth can you maintain that the TW guys didn't look carefully at what they paid over $100 BILLION for? It doesn't fly.

Re:AOL and TW Merged

[davidsyes]

Yeh, they were smokin' laced Bubblicious back then. That bubble popped and stuck all over their faces

Re:AOL and TW Merged

[Stormwatch]

Seriously, how on earth can you maintain that the TW guys didn't look carefully at what they paid over $100 BILLION for? It doesn't fly.

Well, as Heinlein said: never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

Re:AOL and TW Merged

[Anonymous Coward]

For fuck's sake are you retarded. TW didn't pay for anything. AOL bought time warner.
Time warner allowed themselves to be bought out, and accepting a lot of stock that turned out to be worthless so they got fucked over. It's not hard, just learn how to fucking read.

Re:AOL and TW Merged

[maxume]

Huh? Case's AOL shares when from spiffy dot com valuations to crappy old media valuations. He lost billions(on paper).

I guess he might have improved his 5 or 10 or 20 year position, but 1 billion, 5 billion, what's the difference...

Re:AOL and TW Merged

[jbengt]

I assume, like in most failed mergers, they "leveraged their assets" i.e. borrowed more than they could afford.

Re:AOL and TW Merged

[failedlogic]

The merger before it ever happened was grossly over-hyped in the media and Wall-Street as I recall. Some people were doing this, IMO, to make a serious sum of cash, thus the over-hyping. People that didn't understand tech only saw one really big company merging with another which would inevitably lead to huge profits. But for those of us who saw different having seen the crises that AOL was working itself into, I think its safe to say the tech media and techies saw this as a bad move.

Re:AOL and TW Merged

[StikyPad]

I actually had AOL for two reasons. 1) Chat rooms and mail forwarding was faster and easier than usenet, finding FTP dumps, inane IRC rooms, and other "1337" activities. There were no really good news readers (and really still aren't, but fortunately there are decent web interfaces), FTPs would max out and/or go down faster than a Catholic schoolgirl at homecoming, and nobody wanted to DCC to a dialup connection. 2) Back when games required a healthy suspension of disbelief and a metric sh.. well.. a lot of imagination, there was Air Warrior, Legends of Kesmai, and Aliens Online. Of course when Kesmai opened up gamestorm.com, I dropped AOL faster than Angelina dropped pounds.

Before that I had an affair with GEnie, and before that the precursor to AOL: Q-LINK. I still remember downloading SID files because my parents wouldn't let me listen to the "secular" radio.

Unfortunately for AOL, there's not much of anything they can provide these days that the web can't do better, faster, and cheaper (to the end user at least) except, perhaps, to provide compatibility and stability issues (though IE is a close second). Multiplayer online games have long since ceased to be the domain of services with pay-per-hour play time, and the lockdown on chatrooms, e-mail, etc. alienated far more people than it enticed. Unless they can pull an Apple in revitalizing their image and creating a new business model, it seems unlikely that they will continue to exist for any significant amount of time.

Re:AOL and TW Merged

[Tablizer]

He said "pull the wool of their eyes." It's like the strings of their heart, only softer and with a higher risk of retinal damage.

That joke is bahahahahad.

Re:AOL and TW Merged

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically, in a merger, one firm must buy the other. Legally, firm A buys firm B with firm A stock, making everyone in firm B now shareholders in firm A, which then gets renamed firm AB.

TW are Idiots and they Killed AOL.

[Erris]

The death of dial up did not have to be the death of AOL. TW had all sorts of content it could have sold as a subscription to it's user base before they lost it all. Now they are scrambling and suing their fans to keep their media empire alive. More savvy competitors are cutting into their sales via the internet with no base at all. They expect the treats to draw customers.

Re:TW are Idiots and they Killed AOL.

[ILuvRamen]

They expect the treats to draw customers.

you do realize that it's not a treat for them to "focus more on advertising to make up for subscriber loss." That just means their current subscribers will see more and thus stupider ads. AOL is like advertisements online as it is. With unbelievable business decisions like this, anything that happened to AOL they brought on themselves.

Re:TW are Idiots and they Killed AOL.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dunno about that. I remember, back late 2002-03, hearing a dev manager at AOL mentioning that he thought "broadband might turn out to be one of those 'disruptive technologies'."

2002!

How meny of them are the people who are pay to....

[Joe The Dragon]

How meny of them are the people who are pay to keep you on AOL.

Actually slightly surprised

[damn_registrars]

more than 60 percent drop in Time Warner's stock as customers dropped dial-up Web access.

Am I the only person surprised to see this? Considering AOL used to be the top ISP in the country (IIRC), and now the cable companies are instead (like Time Warner), I would have expected that AOL-TimeWarner would have broken even on the deal. Or maybe even come out ahead, considering how much more they can charge for high speed cable modem access, with presumably an easier network to maintain than the phone network that is otherwise beyond their control.

I don't think there was any great exodus of AOL customers switching to satellite for internet service or anything...

fun times tomorrow

[larry bagina]

The company will begin notifying employees of the cuts tomorrow, AOL spokeswoman Bentley said.

Back in the .com days, a company I worked for sent out a press release half an hour before the unscheduled meeting where the news broke. By that time, rumors were already circulating. And this wasn't a newsworthy company or even drastic cuts. It's gotta suck when you've got a 20% chance of getting terminated and 24 hours to worry about it.

Re:fun times tomorrow

[jeillah]

Oh they do that all the time. Sometimes weeks in advance. Lot's of work being done on the AOL campus to be sure...

Re:fun times tomorrow

[hobo sapiens]

If you work for a large corporation, probably the best way to get the latest breaking news (especially news of this type) about your company is from external news sources. Experience has shown that large corporations, for whatever reason, are extremely bad about keeping employees in the loop. Go figure.

Re:fun times tomorrow

[tompaulco]

large corporations, for whatever reason, are extremely bad about keeping employees in the loop. Go figure.
Large being defined as more than about 5. I know that I have been deliberately kept out of the loop in companies of less than 15 people. For some reason, management thinks they are doing you a favor. My boss actually told me, proudly, "I've been shielding you from most of this nonsense." The nonsense being things I couldn't possibly care about, like how was our series A going, when are we getting those promised stock options, is there money for payroll, etc.
The real truth of the matter is that they need to keep you uninformed because you are viewed as a material asset and they don't want you to quit before they have time to sell to the highest bidder and then leave out the back of the plane with the last (golden) parachute.

Re:fun times tomorrow

[ScrewMaster]

Back in 1985 or so, I worked for a software house (video games and educational software, as it happened) and due to a number of factors which can be conveniently lumped under "bad management", they had to institute massive layoffs. "Black Monday" we called it. No warning, no hint of anything to come ... just "there'll be a meeting at 9:00." As we were heading towards the meeting room, our manager pulled me and another programmer aside and said, "Not you two. See me after the meeting." So we went back to our desks and waited, figuring that we were about to get fired or something. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good. But next thing you know, another one of the guys I'd worked with came back from the meeting. Didn't say a word, just made a motion like he was swinging an axe.

In one swell foop, they killed off at least four fifths of the staff: programming, art and animation support, quality assurance, sales, marketing ... all gone. For my part, I was expected to not only continue my current projects, but to also take over the work of half a dozen others. "You have to work 100 hours a week! We have commitments!" I was told. I pointed out that they should have thought of that before they laid off everybody. I lasted another six months ... couldn't take the pressure. One week I worked straight through from Monday morning to Friday afternoon (I went home for an occasional shower and came right back) and my supervisor told me that if I got the product into QC by Friday I could take the next Monday off. So I did, and the bastard tried to renege on the deal. I took it off anyway: being fired didn't seem so bad right about then. As it happened, when I showed up for work the following Tuesday all he said was, "How was your day off?"

I did notice, however, that not a single manager was let go, even though we really didn't need them anymore (ha, nobody to manage.) More to the point, those were the very people that ran the company into the ground. Yet it was the rest of us, the folks that actually created and sold the company's products, who paid the price for their incompetence. Typical, I suppose, but it explains why American businesses seem to be so full of fools and nitwits nowadays.

One late night, me and the other programmer who was kept snuck into the CEO's office, just to see what it was like on the other side. It was unbelievable: very well-appointed, shall we say, On top of that, through a door in the back we found a complete private sauna and jacuzzi! Wasn't like it was his company: he was just hired by the parent corporation to run the place. Spent money like water though.

Last I heard, they'd moved to California and were selling Activision game cartridges.

Can't help myself...

[Fx.Dr]

*ding* "You've been canned!"

Re:Can't help myself...

[Anonymous Coward]

*ding* "You've been canned!"

<AOL> me too </AOL>

Not done yet

[ZwJGR]

2000 gone, another 8000 to go...

Keep up the good work!

You've Gone Pale!

[stabbycabby]

AOL Keyword: Inevitable

AIM

[uselessengineer]

What happens if AOL goes under? Does AIM Follow? or are those on different networks?

Re:AIM

[ravenspear]

The AIM network is run by AOL, although it is separate from their dialup subscriber network. Even if they go under it's unlikely this would be shut down though, too many users and ad revenue. It would most likely be restructured or sold to another party. Even if it did shut down, everyone would just switch to msn or yahoo.

Re:AIM

[TheWizardTim]

Too many people use AIM for it to go. If AOL files chapter 7, someone will buy AIM. It might even be Apple. Apple uses the AIM servers for iChat. I can't see Apple letting AIM go, at least in the short term.

Re:AIM

[stabbycabby]

Oh, please, let it be Adium. Let Adium grow into a magnificent phoenix. A magnificent, Vista-compatible phoenix. That would be beyond badass.

Re:AIM

[MaskedSlacker]

Its good to see a man who has his priorities in order. Too few of those these days.

Re:AIM

[MrDiablerie]

AIM won't go away. One upside to the AOL/Time Warner merger was TW was forced to use AOL's network infrastructure for all their divisions. The streaming video on CNN and Time.com all come from the "AOL" side of the company. Even if the dialup public face of AOL goes away these services will still be around.

Re:AIM

[Ilgaz]

That would require a real miracle as Apple shipping the entire OS X Frameworks and XCode to Windows. Adium is a pure OS X Native program and half of the reason why you love it could be that.

AOL - a Web 2.0 company!

[Animats]

AOL just needs to promote itself as a "Web 2.0" company. They are, after all. Social networking? Definitely, they were there at the beginning. User-contributed content? Yes, they have that. Interactive client? Yes, AOL has that too. Mashups on the home page? Yes! Mobile phone capable? Of course. They even had virtual worlds with avatars, back in their Q-Link days.

Re:AOL - a Web 2.0 company!

[stefanlasiewski]

AOL just needs to promote itself as a "Web 2.0" company.

AOL Executive #1: Hey, we came out with AOL 2.0 in 1995, wayyyy before Web 2.0. Didn't you receive the CD? If not, do you want one? Or do you want another one? I'll slip a couple in the mail just in case you need one.

AOL Executive #2: Me too.

---

In all seriousness, AOL announced their Web 2.0 initiative in late 2006: http://dev.aol.com/node/86 . Although, their blog is almost a year out of date, despite the fact that he says "soon!"

I'll be writing another post about Web 2.0 and AOL's new openness soon!

Submitted by kevinfarnham1 on November 7, 2006 - 8:25pm.

Re:AOL - a Web 2.0 company!

[puppetluva]

The also have a lot of properties like mapquest.

They are sitting on a web2.0 goldmine -- they just don't know what to do with it.

Time Warner sucks.

[LWATCDR]

Man they bought Atari and then got hit with the video game market crash then they bought AOL just in time for the Dot Bomb...
The trick is to watch what TW buys. If it currently hot then it is a sure sign the bubble is going to burst.
On a good not they sold off their holdings in Google in 2004.

Re:Time Warner sucks.

[jbrader]

You should learn to read. AOL bought Time Warner not the other way around.

Like the rest of the industry

[Anonymous Coward]

They will be hiring elsewhere, probably India.

Re:Like the rest of the industry

[Anonymous Coward]

Like all industries. I work for a medical equipment company and we are outsourcing our data entry to India and a chuck of our manufacturing to Ireland.

I imagine (as do most others) that the call center is next.

kci1.com

Bollocks.

[mckwant]

Subscriptions for content never made sense, mostly because you can't stream much of anything over dialup. Once everybody got broadband, AOL got left behind.

Besides which, how much pull do you think the AOL folks had in TW after the .com bust? (hint: not much.). I understand that TW killing AOL didn't make TONS of sense, given TW's broadband lead, which could easily have been co-marketed, at least. Remember, though, AOL also had a crappy reputation for quality of service (horrific login times once the "all you can eat" system started, those damned "downloading new user experience" things), so it really wasn't something you wanted a part of in your new broadband venture.

Plus, at least according to the AOL book I read, the AOL guys got to be tremendous a-holes as it became apparent that they weren't selling connectivity so much as IPOs. Again, consider some mid-level retailer, say J Crew, signing an exclusive deal with AOLMarketplace back at the cusp of the .com explosion. AOL Deal -> Instant IPO -> Instant megaBucks for all concerned. Until AOL started demanding their cut, and things started to fall apart a bit.

AOL killed themselves. Case gets a lot of credit for the TW deal, but it's hard to say that AOL set their own schedule for demise. IMHO, of course.

Linus is right

[Anonymous Coward]

I am with Linus on this one. For the life of me I can't understand what this sucking up to RMS is about. Linus himself does not think GPLv3 is a good thing. So why do people keep adopting it.
Without Linus FOSS is tossed. Not following Linus is dangerous for the survival of FOSS.

Re:Here's to hoping they eliminate the other 80%

[Waffle Iron]

AOHell should never have existed.

That's not true at all. At one time, they provided a crucial service to the PC users in this great nation: a boundless supply of free floppy disks, conveniently delivered almost daily right to our homes and offices. It was only with the demise of the floppy drive that AOL's reason for existence went away.

Will not happen

[WindBourne]

AOL is now run by the same ppl that run TW. That is, they do not understand the net. All they see is ads and are still desperate to figure out how to make money with no work.

I pity AOL

[Neanderthal Ninny]

I remember AOL had the easiest network/internet browser interfaces and it is a pity that no one has taken advantage of this. I remember in the 1990's that most companies that wanted to make a interface good simple User Interface (UI) used "AOL" as an example of a good interface to the common person. My boss at that time said that AOL is a interface that a grandparent can use the internet. For us geeks may look at the AOL interface as stupid but for the common person that doesn't have a degree in CS this is a simple to use interface common people could understand. It is a pity that Time Warner, AOL or anyone else could have patented (correct me if I'm wrong if they did) this interface and made money from it.

Re:How meny of them are the people who are pay to.

[Taco Meat]

I'm sorry...WHAT?!?!

Joe the Dragon's been Drinkin'

AOL should have called it a day already

[GnarlyDoug]

There is a problem with organizations. They seek to perpetuate themselves long after their purpose has been met. In AOL's case they made a metric a**-ton of money in the early days of the internet. Now, instead of distributing all that money and selling off divisions when the business model no longer was very viable and sending everybody home rich, they blew it all on trying to buy a new lease on life with Time-Warner.

This idea that once an organization or business has been created that it should try to exist for the rest of eternity is stupid. Folding before you have uselessly expended all of your capital when you no longer have a viable business model and you are not structured in a manner that allows you to change business models (very hard to do), is not only smart, but it is a fudiciary duty. Throwing all that money away on a long-shot gamble to simply continue existing is silly.

Re:AOL should have called it a day already

[Myopic]

Interesting point. I wonder why the millions of owners didn't suggest such a selloff.

Re:How meny of them are the people who are pay to.

[GreggBz]

Try this link: http://danish.slashdot.org/

Re:speaking of cutting...

[Anonymous Coward]

+1, Informative

The bubble burst 7 years ago...

[bigdaddy25fb]

And we are still feeling repercussions from the burst...

Re:The bubble burst 7 years ago...

[aztektum]

o_O

Seeing as how AOHELL was around way before the .bomb, I would consider this simply piss poor management rather than fallout.

Re:The bubble burst 7 years ago...

[bigdaddy25fb]

Possibly, but you could argue that they aquired Time Warner simply because of the environment and the times. (i.e. Ebay buying skype...)

Re:Luddites - No sympathy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent idea, now go do as Mr. Hands did and earn yourself a Darwin Award.

If only losing your job at AOL...

[themushroom]

...were as hard as quitting your account with AOL.

Employees would get another three months of employment rather than terminated immediately.

Re:If only losing your job at AOL...

[bladesjester]

That only works if you try to quit. After all, I'm sure that AOL had no problem dropping "problem" customers at a moment's notice either...

Re:If only losing your job at AOL...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't discount that....

I know people here at AOL who were fired last year and were back 6 months later as consultants on schedules and rates that actually suited them better. Not everyone, mind you, and certainly not the call center folks in the Philippines that are about to get it, but between the severance package and that, many people might as well keep their jobs for another 4 months.

This, like every cut in the big business world is for two reasons: to make Wall Street like them better and to break up entrenched organizational problems that they don't have the wit to solve short of firing people.

Taking a break?

[Anonymous Coward]

From calling people "turds" and "idiots"?

Where can I get my troll badge and immunity from karma depletion? You seem to be on the inside.

Re:Taking a break?

[Macthorpe]

Hey, give him a break - I don't agree with some of his views, so I'm pretty sure I must be some vile Microsoft-employed fuck who only comes on Slashdot to lie repeatedly in order to debunk his insightful words. Therefore, I am deserving of his disdain and insults!

Twitter! Erris! Whichever one you are today! Come hither and molest me with your Mighty Free Software Penis(tm)! Or you know, that other thing, the shutting up and dying thing. Actually, definitely that one.

(I shouldn't post when I've had 3 hours sleep)

Re:Taking a break?

[dedazo]

Eventually the mods will wise up to him like they did with his other sockuppet, and that will be the end of that.

They're totally screwed...

[nick_davison]

AOL's trained its employees too well.

Boss: You're fired!

Employee: Sorry, AOL employees only accept termination notices between the hours of 1:13am and 1:16am, Ugandan time. Please call back at this deliberately inconvenient time. Until then, we will continue to bill you for our services.

Boss [several hours later]: OK, now you're fired!

Employee: Sorry, please hold.

Boss [several hours later]: Look, you're freaking fired!

Employee: OK, I'm going to sign you up for one more month of free employment.

Boss: I don't want a month's free employment, you're freaking fired, you stupid cretins!

Employee: I'm sorry, we accidentally disconnected that call. Please begin the process again.

Management may want to fire them. If the employees have learned anything from their time working there, it'll be next to impossible to make them actually leave. Karma's a bitch.

What is this AOL you speak of?

[sizzzzlerz]

Do they manufacture sealing wax? 33-1/3 LPs? 8-track tapes? What? Don't believe I've heard of them before.

Re:What is this AOL you speak of?

[Technician]

33-1/3 LPs?

Bad example. Many audiophiles prefer them.

http://www.soundstagedirect.com/?gclid=CO7PyIaLk48CFQSOggodJwmgew

Not the quickest employees on the planet...

[stewbacca]

Anyone still working for AOL really has a problem reading the writing on the wall, eh? Or maybe they were counting on a nice fat severance pay.

Re:Here's to hoping they eliminate the other 80%

[archen]

Heh, they had cool CD cases for a while too. I think I still have the tin ones. I got a weird wooden one from my boss who didn't want it. So I use that to carry around my "action pack" CDs to unfuck people's computers. The look on peoples faces when I bring out that case is priceless: "Dude I asked you to fix my computer. You're going to fix my computer with AOL 9.0?"

The Solution is So Simple

[bratwiz]

The solution is so simple and yet the muckity-mucks at AOL will never get it. Stop putting out a service that sucks, while simultaneously pissing off all your users and pretty much everybody else you ever come into contact with. Sometimes the problem isn't THEM its YOU.

One sure bet though-- those doing the firing will have nothing to lose-- their golden parachutes are in the bag-- while those getting fired won't get squat.

Wouldn't it be fun-- just one time-- for a company to decide to lay people off and start with the CEO, CFO, CIO, and board of directors and all the executive management and higher-up middle management... "We're keeping the workers-- they actually get shit done. The rest of you just sit around on your big hairy asses and collect 6-figure welfare checks. We've discovered we can pay for executives in India who will be just as ineffective from overseas. We're going to take the money we save and throw a big party for the people that actually matter. Oh, and we want our Ferarri back and we'll have someone send you the bill for the stock options and all those trips on the corporate jet."

AOL Failed Marketing with Free Coffee Coasters

[failedlogic]

These job cuts are directly related to failed marketing.

I've been dying to try-out AOL for many years. I heard about it on TV and in newspapers. But I could never 'access' it. I think they lost a lot of money because they kept sending me shiny metal and plastic coffee coasters in the mail and with magazines. It was a very kind gesture on their part. I really like the company as they're funding my coffee habit indirectly. Printing these coasters with their company logo must have cost a lot of money. Maybe they should sell coffee w/ a free coaster instead.

Meanwhile

[Anonymous Coward]

Time Warner/Netscape posts thousands of new jobs on http://monsterindia.com/

Re:Meanwhile

[Xight]

AOL will be saved by World of Warcraft as long as they don't take another 9 years to develop WoW.com http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/02/aol-finds-an-obvious-use-for-wowcom-world-of-warcraft-social-network/

Re:Motto MODDED MOTTO

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yea!

I guess you mean the techs that do the actual support work on calls will get the MEGA AXE/pinkslip/goodbye papers...

ALL, while some clueless fool in upper mgt. keeps his job?

HEY MAN - lol, that's "good business" today - such logic, check it:

Kill the actual productive workers who are in themselves, revenue centers...

(Those revenue centers being support techs, for support calls PAID BY THE CALL (if not by the successful call only))

Then, upper mgt. (are they directly revenue centers I wonder) then demand the workers/techs who are retained must "double their productivity rate", or lose your job!

(& yes, you hear shit like that last little tidbit)

Hey - Who cares if you just BURN THEM OUT after 50-80 hour work weeks, because hey - They're only slaves/replaceable assets!

(New rule & policy, set of course, by those who "set policy" lol, as you noted).

Signed

Disgusted American Worker

Re:They're totally screwed...Here in Tampa area

[LocalVita]

They have cut another 500 jobs and it is creating a large number of unemployed looking for csr/tsr positions. Not a good time for those looking other than thanks to the upcoming Holiday season there are the seasonal csr's needed to cover other companies.. hmm no more 'we cant help you because we are aol and can't tell you what you really need'

Techie density

[Black Perl]

I recently read an article (wish I could find the source now) that studied the "techie density" of people in metropolitan areas across the U.S. Silicon Valley was of course #1, but a close second was the Washington DC metro area which includes the part of northern Virginia where AOL is located.

Re:Techie density

[TheGeneration]

Yeah, but you know that's for government contract work, hardly the stuff of consumer tech revolutions.

Pigs in Hell, I say!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

AOL can die like pigs in Hell. I cancelled them a year ago spring, and by August they were calling me up demanding about $60 in back payment for a service I hadn't actually used in over a year. Seems they didn't actually cancel me for god only knows what reason (other than clerical errors that, like pricing inaccuracies in stores, probably benefit them mostly.)