Inside the AOL Debacle


	Inside the AOL Debacle

innonate

9-26-2007 12:53 AM

13641 views

tags:

aol, investing, internet, sem

innonate says:

Once again, phenomenal reporting coming from SAI. As Andrew Parker said (tweeted) yesterday, they're "getting really good."

This look inside AOL speaks on all levels of the industry, from web design, to business management, to competition and partnerships. Click through to read the whole thing.

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/52c044e4-1d31-4e52-ab97-65f5294bd239/DCCA6164-1302-4ADB-9EF0-A64298C6160A/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/09/time-warner-t-6.html" href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/09/time-warner-t-6.html" style="font-size: 11px;">www.alleyinsider.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/09/time-warner-t-6.html"><div align="center"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/www.alleyinsider.com/img/E368EA10-3EF1-4C41-90F9-0BDA5A335DA4" alt="Silicon Alley Insider: Digital Business, Live From New York" /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/09/time-warner-t-6.html"><H3 class="entry-header">Time Warner (TWX): How AOL Blew Q2</H3></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/09/time-warner-t-6.html">One of new COO Ron Grant's early initiatives was to make AOL executives justify everything they were doing that was different from what Google and Yahoo were doing.  The layout on AOL's search pages, for example, was different than Google's, and Grant did not find the search team's justification for this layout compelling. </blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/09/time-warner-t-6.html">Search revenue immediately tanked, putting the company on track to
miss its internal target. </blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/09/time-warner-t-6.html">Meanwhile, in an attempt to goose search revenue, AOL began
promoting search results on the service's main pages.  This accelerated
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