mmorpg

Jan 30, 2015 ∞

Aol dials up the stupid with 150 editorial layoffs

Brianna Royce, Editor in Chief of Massively, the MMORPG arm of popular gaming blog Joystiq, which is also going away, talking about Aol Corporate’s most recent stupidity:

I would like to be able to tell you truthfully that this is an equitable and just decision that makes some sort of logical sense, but the reality is that our overlords’ decisions have always been unfathomable. I know more of what I know about corporate from reading tech and finance news than through my own job. We all suspected this was coming eventually a year ago when a VP whose name I don’t even know and who never read our site chose to reward our staggering, hard-won 40% year-over-year page view growth by… hacking our budget in half. There’s nothing to do in the face of that kind of logic but throw your hands in the air.

Aol still depends, yes, depends on its dial-up revenue to survive. That is why these popular sites have been euthanized and at least 150 people laid off. Because Aol leadership, millionaires all, can’t figure out how to run their company.

Aol owns The Huffington Post, TechCrunch and at least a couple of other very successful blogs. There are people working there who know how to run a profitable blog. Is it executive hubris that prevents the brass from asking someone what the hell to do?

I hate to be morbid but thetruth is that some day relatively soon everyone willing to endure dial-up will be dead. What will Aol do then?

I don’t know, but more importantly, and infuriatingly when it means people lose their jobs, neither does anyone at Aol.