AOL

Via SAI: AOL "Disintegrating"

What a fucking mess that company is.

Way back when, while I was working for one of the divisions of Time Warner, they delivered one of those "corporate profile" posters to our in-boxes, listing the many "brands" that composed the business. A big constellation of companies revolving around the Time Warner logo, mostly acquired rather than grown.

It was fun to draw a big X though each one as it became clear that the business had shriveled and died. As a technology person, I was particularly interested in the piles of money thrown at tech companies.

• CompuServe
• ICQ (this was particularly good, as the company paid $400 million for a company with no revenue)
• Nullsoft
• Netscape

..and these are just the big ones. Anyone remember Truveo? Spinner.com? Userplane? MusicNow?