As first reported by the Washington Post, America Online is expected to eliminate more than 700 jobs from its workforce next month. The majority of the layoffs will occur at AOL's Dulles, Virginia headquarters where nearly 5,000 are presently employed. Analysts cite AOL's dwindling subscriber base; however, a company spokesperson refused to validate that assertion. Officially, AOL has no comment.
Similar to how Google successfully remolded RSS into a Google tool, the company now wants to remold Gmail into one big Google party
UPDATED Though the support line had been set up for shipping, it now appears Google personnel are happy to hear technical concerns.
Carmi Levy | Wide Angle Zoom: Can the tech sector learn a few lessons from the space program? Certainly, if you believe in learning from someone else's mistakes.
Weaning itself from the post office as its main means of video transfer, Netflix would like someone to ensure the Internet remains just as unencumbered.
RealNetworks and Viacom subsidiary MTV Networks have begun the process of spinning off music service Rhapsody into an independent company.
Today, Nvidia announced that its Optimus technology for GPU switching will soon be available in a handful of Asus notebooks.
Google has lowered the Nexus One's early termination fees which were twice as high as the norm.
It's a mobile broadband hotspot, but it's for use in the home.
A new study says streaming video is "the single most influential factor driving the need for increased mobile network capacity."
If you're still afflicted with the 3G flip-flop trouble, then you might consider moving. That appears to be the only suggestion Google can give for now.
"Answer engine" Wolfram|Alpha has updated its iPhone/iPod Touch app, harnessing the strength of the virtual keyboard.
RSS
I have some inside information I would like to share. Please no flames, but questions are encouraged.
AOL sees themselves as a content provider, Not an ISP. In the grand scheme of things they (AOL & TW Management) see AOL as becoming more and more content oriented.
AOL will be less of a independent unit in the future, and more of an integrated product.
Watch for the AOL client to disappear as we know it. . The AOL client provided a common set of controls that was primarily a way of controlling the environment that AOL users experienced. Back in the days of Windows 95, the OS had limited capability. Heck, dial up networking didn’t even work right. At the time it made sense to have a controllable client that made the operating environment exactly the same on all computers.
AOL is actively working on creating stand alone products that provide a "user experience". They understand that their current model is not sustainable. Time Warner wants to push AOL content through a myriad of devices and channels. In fact, don’t be too surprised if your local cable provider starts providing AOL centered, web enabled set-top full fledged PC’s with DVR, VOIP and a whole bunch of goodies.
Aol will be much different than you know…
Score: 0
|AOL has about 10-15 years left, at this rate, probably less.
Instead of buying time warner, they should have bought AT&T broadcand/Excite@home, it would have been easy given their stock value and it was fairly predictable even in 1999 that dial-up wasn't going to last.
Blame AOL management, it was easy back then to see the writing on the wall and they spent their money in the wrong place.
Good riddance. AOL really went downhill right around the net's explosion in '96-'97.
Score: 0
|I agree. AOL is really screwing itself. People are realizing that they can get 50X the speed for less than twice the price, and the bring-your-own-connection thing is a completely pointless venture. No one wants to pay $120 a year for an AOL spam-ridden e-mail account, and the once useful AOL keywords are now a joke.
Score: 0
|AOL didn't "buy" Time Warner. They merged 55% to 45% and in the end it cost Time Warner far more than AOL. And Time Warner Cable has its own broadband option called Road Runner as well as tons of content that was supposed to help keep users with AOL.
If anybody made a big mistake it was Time Warner. They took a company with a stock price around 70 and turned it into a company with a stock price around 17 by adding a failing business. Steve Case basically bamboozled the TW execs and while he still walked away a millionaire, thousand of people's retirement funds were destroyed.
Score: 0
|YAY :D
Score: 0
|And to think that AOL is still hiring people, too.
D'OH!
Score: 0
|There's nothing to say, "Yay" about. 700 people just lost their jobs, you d***head.
Score: 0
|er i meant YAY at the "dwindling subscriber base" comment :p not the losing of jobs
Score: 0
|calling someone a d***head cause they say "Yay" to this, really, i have to disagree with you on that one. "Analysts cite AOL's dwindling subscriber base".... that in itself i see as a very good thing, people are wising up to their b.s. Naturally, someones going to lose their jobs from that, yeah that always sucks, but as a pc tech. i pray for an ever larger decline in aol's subscriber base, until its nothing more then a bad memory. And i really hope all those people find better paying jobs at companies that are a little more beneficial to society as a whole.
Score: 0
|