Comments on: Engadget Defection Exposes AOL’s Major Weakness

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 01:58:42 +0000

Tim Armstrong clearly lied to everyone when he said that “high quality journalism” would be the future of AOL. Fact is, he let go of 900 employees in March – all his high quality journalists that came from places such as BusinessWeek, Smart Money, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. He kept the cheaper ones who didn’t have much experience in journalism. And he is counting on Arianna’s free bloggers to save AOL. High quality journalism? Tim doesn’t know what it means. Case in point: Today’s AOL must – read headline: “Popeater: What Hef Won’t Make Fiancee Do.”

By: Isaac Rabinovitch

Isaac Rabinovitch — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 23:58:02 +0000

AOL was never an “web giant”. Their inability to adapt to the rise of the web is the main reason for their pygmification.

What they were was an online service giant, back when Mathew Broderick was showing Ally Sheedy his modem.

http://bit.ly/fX7xut

By: Krum

Krum — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 18:39:33 +0000

You noticed (as confirmed by you mentioning it) and cared enough to comment. Enough said.

By: Darwin

Darwin — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 16:07:16 +0000

All that was required to be a writer at Engadget was the ability to cut and past from other websites and add some inane commentary slanted to appeal to their teenage audience. Not exactly a critical skill that can’t be easily replaced. It is amusing though how many of the Engadget people felt the need to write long posts about why they were leaving as if anybody cares or will notice.

By: ronald

ronald — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 15:42:38 +0000

Maybe in the “post PC area” it’s about experience, not about normalized (numbers) driven features/articles. Which just presents yesterdays ranked anonymous user/providers behavior.
Or the “post PC area” might be more personal than people expect, from HW over SW design to presentation and integration.