AOL: We're working on something big and secret
SAN FRANCISCO--Tim Armstrong is such a tease.
The AOL CEO, speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit on Thursday, didn't have any high-profile announcements like many of the other speakers at the conference. But instead, he hinted that one might be on the way.
"We have been working on something for the last three months that I think is a fairly substantial shift in our technology," he said. "When that's ready to announce, maybe we'll come back and talk to you about it."
Interviewer and conference organizer John Battelle tried to pry more information out of him, to little avail. But it sounds like it has something to do with the framework that powers AOL's network of blogs and content properties.
"It's a broader platform with more information around content and the creation of content," he said. "We see that platform evolving to a much higher scale."
Armstrong, who joined AOL in March after a stint as head of sales at Google, said that recently the company has increased its roster of journalists from 500 to over 3,000, and that over 3,000 pieces of content are posted every day to AOL properties. It's also now creating three to four times as much video as it was several months ago.
"We've hired people from places like The Wall Street Journal and ESPN," Armstrong said. "You're not just hiring a person, you're hiring the community they come with, and I think that has been an important part when you look at the network effects of that."
It's still not clear how AOL, currently in the process of being spun out from parent company Time Warner, will rake in profits from this huge investment in media content. Armstrong seemed unfazed.
"If you're not going to take risks and you don't think the future is bright," he said, "the Internet is probably not the right place for you."
Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline. 
AOL owns massively big internet pipes. That is well known.
Instead of hundreds of "channels"...you now have thousands ?
I always wanted 101 free minutes of American Online cramming software into my cpu withouit my permission
LOL
AOL used to have exclusives before the Internet and WWW took off. Sure AOL has searchable content on encyclopedias, movie databases, videos, newspapers, news reporting but then everyone else on the Internet has that as well. Like Wikipedia, even the Encyclopedia Britanica went online, the Internet Movie Database is free to use, and Wikipedia lists movie entries as well for free. Most newspapers are online now and are a dime a dozen. Youtube, Google Video, and Miro etc do videos for free. MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News are online news sources for free.
So what does AOL have to offer for paid services that we cannot get for free elsewhere? Uh nothing.
What will they develop a new social network, what about Mysapce, Facebook and Twitter?
What about a user submitted news feed service? Digg, Reddit, and Current?
What about an answer based network? Wiki.answers.com, Yahoo Answers, etc.
What content hasn't been covered yet? Sports? ESPN, Fox Sports, etc.
I really don't see why I should be an AOL subscriber, I am way too smart as I know whatever AOL has to offer for subscriptions I can get elsewhere for free. Everything elsewhere is user friendly now as well. So AOL doesn't have that "easier to use" excuse anymore.
The best part of AOL, they dropped, Netscape, now there was original content and technology. They spin Netscape's web browser off as the Mozilla Foundation, and the added AOL bloat to the Netscape branded web browser, until nobody wanted to use it anymore when Firefox was more lightweight and so was Opera, Safari, and others. AOL with Netscape made the first web browser that made Microsoft Internet Explorer look like a lightweight and fast web browser as AOL Netscape was way more bloated than IE and full of spyware as well.
The only people that need AOL are the ones not smart enough to figure out how to use a DSL install CD, which ironically seems to be easier to use than the AOL install CD and also installs an AV software as well. The DSL and Cable companies have eaten into AOL's DSL and Dialup network. Who wants to pay $23.99 for AOL Dial-Up and line noise makes it 38K BPS when DSL starts at $19.99 a month and has 384K BPS speeds at the lowest bandwidth. For a few dollars cheaper you can get ten times the speed with the DSL or Cable modems and even save more money by bundling your TV and Phone services to the bill.
Stick a fork in it, AOL is done. Unless they really come up with something original, which I highly doubt.
Or a AOLINUX thumb drive that the same will happen to!
- by Covert_Koala October 23, 2009 7:58 AM PDT
- I have faith in AOL, dinosaurs didn't rule the earth for hundreds of millions of years for nothing. The sooner they get away from TurdWarmer the sooner they can start stomping the dumb monkeys. Also remember, even though they lose subscribers every day, they still have MILLIONS of dial-up customers.
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