Construction Ahead for AOL

December 26, 2011

Shareholder pressure, poor financial performance, and staff defections—now that’s a Kwanzaa gift with quite a few goodies inside. Will Google-inspired management reverse the Yahoo-ization and Research in Motion approach to corporate progress?

Once again, AOL is about to restructure itself, reveals Steven Musil at CNET News in “AOL to Announce Company Reorg, Report Says.” Is this really necessary? Reorganizations make for lost time, after all. True, AOL has suffered for being behind the curve on Internet trends; its share price has fallen over 40% over the last 52 weeks. But will it gain more than it loses with this rework?

CEO Tim Armstrong believes so. The article notes:

AOL hired Armstrong away from Google in 2009 with hopes that the Web giant’s advertising sales guru would help revive the ailing AOL. However, Armstrong, who is best known for developing Google’s online advertising business, has had trouble competing for ad dollars with his former employer, as well as Facebook and Yahoo.

I’m sure he knew it wouldn’t be easy. Now he hopes consolidating AOL services into one division will help. The company is also creating dedicated units for advertising, local services, and the Huffington Post media group.

Speaking of the Huffington Post, where’s the Huffington rescue squad? Can’t Arianna do anything she sets her mind to?

Cynthia Murrell, December 26, 2011

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.