What IT means to some
A reading of the interview of the AOL Europe chief manager, Dana Dunne, makes your day. I will not delve into the long passages which describe at great length his life experiences, as they indeed sound very well and also boring at times. More interesting is what AOL pretends to be.
The interview, edited in the FT manner, says AOL is a well-established, well-respected brand whose name, in the US at any rate, is practically synonymous with service provision over the internet. No, in US AOL is known an internet provider, not as an internet-borne services provider - and a cheap and lousy if we get to that. Also AOL is a CD provider - they will send you a CD right away, too bad it will be already written.
The reading goes on like this: The plan was to convert the former ISP into an internet portal, a free service providing compelling content that would be paid for by online advertising. According to Mr Dunne, the change has been successful and rapid. Funny, stock market prices would not confirm the “success”, revenue wouldn’t either. Market share for internet search, web-based email or IM is microscopic, amazing for a major player only a few years ago. This happened even before Mr. Dunne joined AOL, in 2005, but continued throughout. True, Winamp or Netscape, some of the most used PC applications, have lost their appeal long before 2005, but it is since then that they were killed thoroughly. Netscape’s plug was pulled this year, and Winamp died, unofficially, in the beginning of 2005, when the last original developer left. Ever since, Winamp did not change, did not improve, and was replaced even by bloated garbage such as today’s Windows Media Player or Itunes.
Speaking of Winamp. The interview mentions it: He points to the company’s Winamp media player as an example of its new approach. The software which drives the player was written in the US, Europe, India and China. Furthermore, the code is open – other companies can write “plug-ins” for it, special programs which extend its capabilities. Now it is possible to stream music off your PC remotely to your mobile phone using a Winamp plug-in. To be more specific, Winamp was extensible way before AOL messed it. The first version after AOL bought it was incompatible with plugins already written, and that led to a market share collapse. Next iteration brought back compatibility with older plugins, but it was years too late and users already found more reliable replacements. Maybe this way of breaking and repairing whatever customers found useful in your product is the so-called new approach, but my guess is that it is not an optimal one. And, of course, now it is possible to listen to music on your mobile - it is called Comes with Music, and it doesn’t require an computer powered on, running a bloated application.
He points, however, to the fact that from a mere three European countries when he took over, AOL is now present in 13. Let me see if I got it: a few years ago, if you typed “AOL.com” in your browser, you would have to be in the right country, otherwise AOL would not be “present” for you. Even today it is almost the same, but the number of countries where the website doesn’t exist is smaller. Even inside the Schengen area or the eurozone, some countries will see AOL as “absent”, whatever that is.
Last year AOL issued four big upgrades of its e-mail application. This made me laugh. After so many years of hostile treatment, even conservatory grandmas left AOL’s email, and the four upgrades won’t turn them back. Maybe some more four of those.
The company [...] has the advantage of a chief executive knowledgeable about technology. Poor thing, I bet he uses at work both Google search and Microsoft-powered Exchange email. Maybe he assumes those are AOL products?