AOL Not Done Hemorrhaging Money Quite Yet

AOL--once worth $164 billion only nine years ago when they bought Time Warner--is now worth a relatively meager $5.7 billion, loses 200,000 subscribers a month, and is getting unceremoniously kicked out of the Time Warner fold on December 9th, six years after the AOL was dropped from AOL Time Warner after a $99 billion loss in one year.

Despite the fact that things have only been looking down for AOL, they assure you they are still relevant.

Seriously! Just because everybody who has an AOL account is over the age of 45 and thinks AOL is the internet does not mean they can't compete with Google. I mean...they just have so many unique products to offer...like...uhm...web advertising and stuff.

Aware they needed a massive directional shift, they recently brought in a former Google executive to turn things around, handed out millions to Madison Avenue ad/research firms, and decided that on December 9th their new logo will look like this:

What more could they possibly need, right? Careful not to blink--you might miss their instant, meteoric rise to the top of the technology industry.

In case you are an idiot and don't get it, let the overpaid AOL peeps explain:

"The period in the logo was added to suggest “confidence, completeness,” Ms. Wilson said, by declaring that “AOL is the place to go for the best content online, period.”

Mr. Armstrong said he liked to describe the period as “the AOL dot” because “the dot is the pivot point for what comes after AOL,” whether it is e-mail, Web sites or coming offerings that will “surprise people.”

The constantly changing images behind the logo are also intended to elicit surprise, said Ms. Wilson and Jordan Crane, creative director at Wolff Olins New York.

“It’s a mix of do-it-yourself and high production values, crazy stuff and elegant stuff,” Mr. Crane said, “simple and engaging and bizarre — all the things the Internet is.”

(courtesy NYTimes.com)

Man, do those folks at Leo Burnett, Wolff Olins, and AOL know how to milk money out of a dying cow! Maybe they would do a more thorough, effective job if their salaries actually depended on the performance of the company?

But what do I know--I'm (sadly?) not in the bullshit business and I didn't lose $16 billion in the first three months of this year...I got no cred!

_