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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.'"
"AOL - because online discourse is too intelligent."
I'm sure that these are mostly support positions, not the chimps who set policy.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Boss to Employees: "Goodbye".
There, now it's out of the way.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
But, I don't feel sorry for AOL.
So easy to hate them for their horrible business practices.
May they disappear into dust.
Dave Barnes 9 breweries within walking distance of my house
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.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
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
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
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.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
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...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
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.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
*ding* "You've been canned!"
AOL Keyword: Inevitable
What happens if AOL goes under? Does AIM Follow? or are those on different networks?
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.
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.)
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...
Software Freedom Day!.
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.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
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.
.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.
.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.
Besides which, how much pull do you think the AOL folks had in TW after the
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
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.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
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.
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.
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.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
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 prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
Try this link: http://danish.slashdot.org/
And we are still feeling repercussions from the burst...
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.
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.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
...were as hard as quitting your account with AOL.
Employees would get another three months of employment rather than terminated immediately.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
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.
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)
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
Circumcision is child abuse.
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)
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
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.
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
Do they manufacture sealing wax? 33-1/3 LPs? 8-track tapes? What? Don't believe I've heard of them before.
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.
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.
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).
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?"
Eventually the mods will wise up to him like they did with his other sockuppet, and that will be the end of that.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
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."
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.
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'
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/
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.
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.
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...
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
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.
Software Freedom Day!.
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.
bp
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.)
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.