As an engineer at Aol, articles like this drive me crazy. I'm not 100% sold on the company's viability as it stands (MapQuest, AIM, and Moviefone don't really belong together), but I do want it to succeed. Bizzarre politicking played out publicly and the steady stream of internal emails stating "so-and-so got promoted and other-so-and-so is gone effective immediately" are getting disheartening.
I know the siren song of "it doesn't have to be like this" that startups sing (and, until relatively recently, all I worked at were startups). But (surprise!) Aol has a lot of great engineers. Once you get an excuse to work cross-property and can see that on a bigger scale, it begins to feel like "Hey, if we had the opportunity, we could build some (more) amazing stuff."
But we're constantly reminded that this is a HuffPo world now and business drama is par for the course. Sigh.
@fleaflicker - You would be in a unique position to know!
"Touchdown Called Back: Fleaflicker Founder Buys Back Fantasy Sports Site From AOL"
"Over three years ago, we reported that AOL had acquired the New Jersey-based fantasy sports site Fleaflicker. It seemed like a touchdown for 26-year-old founder Ori Schwartz. Now it's looking more like a touchdown that was just called back."
"AOL has alerted members of the service today that Schwartz has bought back Fleaflicker. As of July 22, AOL will no longer be in control of the site which has dwindled under the control of our parent company. "While we love Fleaflicker (and our users love Fleaflicker), we wanted to find a home for the product where it can receive more love and attention," is the subtle middle finger in their FAQ."
I'm probably just a naive engineer who got acquired in a purchase, but I wish it were better and I think it could be (in a magical universe where better decisions get made by a great many people).
As an engineer at Aol, articles like this drive me crazy. I'm not 100% sold on the company's viability as it stands (MapQuest, AIM, and Moviefone don't really belong together), but I do want it to succeed. Bizzarre politicking played out publicly and the steady stream of internal emails stating "so-and-so got promoted and other-so-and-so is gone effective immediately" are getting disheartening.
I know the siren song of "it doesn't have to be like this" that startups sing (and, until relatively recently, all I worked at were startups). But (surprise!) Aol has a lot of great engineers. Once you get an excuse to work cross-property and can see that on a bigger scale, it begins to feel like "Hey, if we had the opportunity, we could build some (more) amazing stuff."
But we're constantly reminded that this is a HuffPo world now and business drama is par for the course. Sigh.