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0 pointscuriousllama5y ago0 comments

AOL had a particular mismanagement problem that Google doesn't have.

AOL didn't lack depth: they literally had email (@aol.com), social media (AIM), video-calling (Vonage), cloud filesharing (Xdrive) and so much more.

Ultimately, they failed because (1) they were overvalued to begin with and (2) had a bad innovation model (top-down) that led them to (a) over-commit to online ads and (b) under-commit to broadband.

Google is sustainable & mature, and it has a distributed innovation model that will avoid the particular mistakes of AOL.

Google is reacting to the Walled Garden trend, not driving it.

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3 comments · 1 top-level

jacquesm5y ago· 2 in thread

> Google is reacting to the Walled Garden trend, not driving it.

I could follow you right up to that bit.

curiousllamaOP5y ago

Yea, actually fair, bit of a non-sequitur.

I meant to say that Google is well-positioned to take advantage of being a Walled Garden, and is doing so now because the model is being built out out elsewhere, both domestically (Apple, Amazon) and abroad (WeChat, Jio).

wnevets5y ago

Facebook and Apple have been driving those trends for well over a decade.

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