Leaving in a Huff

#1

Post by quilby » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 11:05 AM UTC

Re: Leaving in a Huff

#2

Post by petewailes » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 11:19 AM UTC

Anyone else ever feel that watching AOL do anything is like watching your child make a bad choice, and knowing that you can't stop them?

I'm getting to the point of just feeling sorry for them nowadays.

Re: Leaving in a Huff

#3

Post by dhimes » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 1:22 PM UTC

TL;DR: It's a well written chronicle of the corporate communication that occurred during the restructuring of cinematical.com/moviefone.com under AOL after they were bought from Huffington. The author wrote freelance for cinematical. After the editor-in-chief at cinematical resigned (and two other editors there had resigned), the editor-in-chief of moviefone was apparently put in charge of corralling the freelancers. The author is responsible for starting the internet backlash which led to the firing of the editor-in-chief at moviefone. He respects her a lot and regrets his involvement in bringing about her termination.

Re: Leaving in a Huff

#4

Post by daimyoyo » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 1:27 PM UTC

Jason Calacanis should negotiate to get cinematical back from aol. They clearly have no idea what to do with it and I'm sure he'd have no problem with the whole "pay people who create content" model.

Re: Leaving in a Huff

#5

Post by jrwoodruff » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 1:32 PM UTC

dhimes wrote: post #3

TL;DR: It's a well written chronicle of the corporate communication that occurred during the restructuring of cinematical.com/moviefone.com under AOL after they were bought from Huffington. The author wrote freelance for cinematical. After the editor-in-chief at cinematical resigned (and two other editors there had resigned), the editor-in-chief of moviefone was apparently put in charge of corralling the freelancers.…

I would add that AOL let go most of the freelancers, retaining only a select few to fill the gap while they got their 'unpaid bloggers' lined up to fill the content void. And that the freelancers who had been let go were offered the 'opportunity' to continue writing, without pay, as unpaid bloggers.

Re: Leaving in a Huff

#6

Post by josephb » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 1:36 PM UTC

petewailes wrote: post #2

Anyone else ever feel that watching AOL do anything is like watching your child make a bad choice, and knowing that you can't stop them? I'm getting to the point of just feeling sorry for them nowadays.

I was thinking when they bought Techcrunch things might be on the up for them.

Clear miscalculation on my part as AOL are still fail.

Re: Leaving in a Huff

#7

Post by Vivtek » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 1:39 PM UTC

Money quote is - AOL: you've got fail.

Just one of the many points where this guy made me chortle with schadenfreudige glee.

Re: Leaving in a Huff

#8

Post by adestefan » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 2:04 PM UTC

petewailes wrote: post #2

Anyone else ever feel that watching AOL do anything is like watching your child make a bad choice, and knowing that you can't stop them? I'm getting to the point of just feeling sorry for them nowadays.

The face palms started with the AOL/Time Warner fiasco in 2000.

I still remember sitting in my basement watching the NASDAQ hit 5000 and thinking this wasn't going to end well. The AOL/Time Warner merger a month later didn't help that feeling. Too bad I was a poor 19 year old college student who didn't understand how the financial world works at the time.

Re: Leaving in a Huff

#9

Post by teyc » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 2:07 PM UTC

This is classic price anchoring at work.

For years people would be very happy to produce work and get (somewhat) paid for it because it is about writing something they are passionate for. Then, this gets disrupted because the owner gets a big payout and doesn't share. Disgusted with how things have turned out, since they now perceive their work to be worth more, they leave. Suddenly the talent acquisition has turned into nothing.

(The case of HuffPost is somewhat different, presumably the traffic would stay around longer. )

But this business model is subject to disruption. I read that pirates operate on a fairness principle, because many of them suffered as sailors in government ships. May be someone here can start a HuffPost alternative that issues equity instead?

Re: Leaving in a Huff

#10

Post by pstack » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 2:28 PM UTC

daimyoyo wrote: post #4

Jason Calacanis should negotiate to get cinematical back from aol. They clearly have no idea what to do with it and I'm sure he'd have no problem with the whole "pay people who create content" model.

He'd probably continue the confusion he's caused with the existing TWiT network by rebranding it "This Week In . . . Cinema". Unless he could find a way to do some namedropping in the rebranding, too.