AOL Management: The Xoogler Effect
November 24, 2011
My view about Google as a management training ground is that “real” managers are not produced at Google. Examples range from the legal tussles to the killing of products, the handling of squawks about search results, and the controlled chaos approach which works because of online revenue flows. Lots of money cleanses many things. But management expertise?
At AOL, Tim Armstrong, a Xoogler (former Google employee), is in charge. I found the round up of news, events, and speculation fascinating. Point your browser thing at “The Truth About The People Running AOL Right Now” to get the full run down of issues.
I noted one point which I have tucked in my “management tips” folder. Here it is:
Huffington is a “perfectionist” who is “in the weeds,” says one source. She is also AOL’s product visionary. She cannot be managed. Another source says AOL is The Huffington Post Media Group now.
Well, that is fascinating. How long will Tim Armstrong remain the top gun? And what about search? What about effective management? Oh, never mind.
Stephen E Arnold, November 24, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Comments
One Response to “AOL Management: The Xoogler Effect”
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
Livid, furious, “Member” of twelve years. Not only is AOL seemingly permanently DOWN, their “tech support” has been deliberately moribund and now seemingly “deceased” as the “robot switchboard” is unable to interpret the ID of the caller/”Member” through a system seemingly short circuited! I tried the phone number listed with the AOL charge to my MC account and guess what, I got “the robot!!”
“The robot” asked for your “10 digit phone number,” and failing that recognition (and I pay all charges by phone or ONLINE without any problem anywhere else, inclusive of Bill Matrix), there is the idiotic apology that “the robot” AGAIN “didn’t get that!” Please SPELL OUT your SCREEN NAME. “The robot” cannot handle VERBAL information either, and then proceeds to INFORM WHERE TO FIND YOUR SCREEN NAME AND WHAT A SCREEN NAME IS!!!
By this time, it is fury on a roll at boiling temperature, “The Robot” does not interpret commonly known linguistic description of Member angst and frustration vocalized in decibels of matching frustration, disgust, and anger of “Members” billed for what?
For the past three days, GOOGLE has not been accessible; it was my unfortunate responsibility to be coordinating information for a funeral, mortuary and cemetery. On a daily basis, I rely upon GOOGLE as do most of my friends, whether human or veterinary medicine, news and information on a sundry of topics, and the only way to reach GOOGLE was to close out AOL and go back ONLINE through my INTERNET EXPLORER BROWER which takes me to the MSN site through which I can attempt to reach GOOGLE but then without the convenience of direct cut and paste to an email in progress!
As to “The Huffington Post,” anyone who was been introduced to “La Arianna” quickly realizes she is an arrogant and pompous individual who likely came into the $$$ to sensationalize her very inadequate grasp of substance and value over the superficial; the videos that are RAM hogs and slow the “speed” of Broadband to where attempting to view the subject lines has become a tough slog!
Further the comments are not “edited” contemporaneous, they are censored in some backroom distant from contemporaneous discussion, back and forth commentary, and utterly useless. There are frequent critiques of the reporting posted for lack of or incomplete or inadequate coverage of relevant issues: In a recent issue, a horrific plane crash took the life of a father and three children; the parents were divorced, the mother herself a pilot and not on the plane was the only information vested with the exception of her notification by a county sheriff.
In sum, AOL has veritably ceased to be, and with the audacity to SHUT DOWN all means of communication of dissatisfaction and with the imposition of the issues of coversion to another service and security of Personal Filing Cabinets of twelve years!