This is What is Wrong with AOL…
…amazing to see these things are also underlying a lot of Yahoo’s problems:
I have met Brad Garlinghouse several times in my antispam/email work and he is a good guy…someone you would want to work for. Maybe he is making a power move, but I think this is a weird way to do it. Instead, I think he is frustrated and just being very honest about what is wrong over there, perhaps in a last ditch effort to change the organization (before he joins Google :-).
I see many of the same things wrong with AOL. Not everything is identical, but boy do the similarities outweigh the differences. How would you change AOL if you were in charge?
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What struck me the most about the Yahoo e-mail is that we’re ahead of them in some ways. We’ve already started the transformation. We just don’t know yet if it worked and what to expect from our new CEO.
How would I change AOL? More focus on development and technology, fewer VPs who get a say in product decisions, more integrated teams where everyone has a stake in the product and is involved in feature requirements and development, allowing products to grow at an organic pace, no longer settling for being in a markey, and a much flatter reporting structure up to the CEO. I’d also love to see Design much more closely aligned with products so a single designer can work on and develop a product over time instead of being “air dropped” in whenever a new design is needed.
Good post, Carl. I was thinking the same thing. Y! has all the same problems we have. But even though they have all these problems, their leadership understands the Internet much better than we do. Look at all the great acquisitions they have made in the last 12 months to bring in smart technology and smart people. I think Terry Semmel is really good even though he is under some pressure now. Just go listen to the podcast of his Web 2.0 talk from 2005.
I agree with everything Kevin said. I’ll add that our 5th floor execs, especially the CEO, need to be much more visible to everyone. There is enough collective wisdom within the ranks to keep AOL moving in the right direction. They need to ask questions and draw out thoughts and opinions from the employees. Read The Wisdom of Crowds. The execs get insulated by the 5th floor and issue mission statements that don’t mean anything and key goals that aren’t actionable. They need to descend from the mountain and take part in the products this company is building. IMHO, that is what this company needs most.
To add to Kevin and Alan’s good ideas: if I were made god of AOL, I’d embrace a culture of iterative development. All too often, we pile every possible feature into a product before it gets out the door. As a result, our dev takes far too long - often leading to cancellation of products.
Instead, I’d have us build a reasonable first version and push it out the door. Then pay close attention to what users are doing with the product, and what they’re saying about the product. Fix the issues that arise, focus on the areas that users like, and keep putting out new iterations. And don’t give up if the product doesn’t make a huge splash on day one - give it a few months to find its audience.
Iterate iterate iterate!
Hi All,
Your comments and ideas are completely right. In light of your comments, I think the most we need @ AOL are :
- Execs and Techno oriented VP’s/Business guys
- Execs/VP’s who listen to people wo are making the AOL day to day
- Agile (Iterative) methodology from Business to Tech (Iteration)
What we are unable to do today is to make a full featured product and launch it in the TTM required. Have a look @ our most sucessfull products :
- AOL Radio : 1 product, 1Team (PdM, PjM, SysAdmin, Dev, QA)
- AOL PHoto : same thing
- Webmail : same thing
These 3 products were launched with basic features and we are iterating on new features, bugs correction, on short dev life cycle.
To sum up, I guess the main challenge is to fit business TTM without loosing features & quality. Due to that, all the AOL company has to move to a more “Agile” organization.