

Eleven Years of Ambition and Failure At AOL - physcab
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/eleven-years-of-ambition-and-failure-at-aol/?hp

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ExJournalist
The history of AOL reads like that of the U.S. auto industry:

• Pick the easy money as fast as you can • Pick old-school corporate
leadership and hope it'll work in a new, highly competitive world. • Don't
worry about looking at the latest innovative directions - or seeking a CEO who
can _create_ new ones for your corporation.

There must be _some_ technological/business assets left in AOL. What about
finding some leadership that wants to be _ahead_ of the next wave of digital
communication?

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bingaman
Justin Frankel actually technically worked for AOL (via Nullsoft) when he
wrote Gnutella and WASTE. Probably the best things to come out of AOL (by
proxy) in the last decade. (Not that they didn't try to stop it, either).

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mikeryan
"2004: Embracing broadband"

This was about 7-8 years too late.

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rawr
Wait... so you mean the company whose advertising slogan was "Welcome to the
World Wide Wow" didn't succeed?

This story brought me much joy and happiness. Thank you very much for bringing
it to my attention.

