I has certainly been a interesting past few months here at AOL!

What's Jason saying now?

Jason Calacanis, the "accidental" AOL spokesperson (only by virtue of his company's acquisition by AOL), isn't the best source of speculation as to who stays and who goes in this case. He wasn't with AOL that long, and never did get fully absorbed into the AOL culture - devoting most of his time to blog-criticizing AOL products he knew little about, and promoting himself as the next blog-star ala Mark Cuban (just less-informed).

Of the three departures, Bankoff's is most logical. He was Ted Leonsis's "golden boy" - moving into his current role after a moving up the ranks via a number of other positions defined for him - all starting with his MBA internship. Now that Ted's role is diminished, well....

McKinley was good - probably just a political thing there - or a clear decision on his part. With Redling, Randy F. probably just decided it was time to move the marketing department beyond mailing out CD offers with "1,000 free hour" offers...

Trust me - when Jason made that comment I dont even think Jim knew that he was doing this yet.. : )

Jason = not an expert on who would stay or go in this environment. He really wasn't with AOL that long, and was not a Dulles-based employee.

"The appearance and retirement of actors are the great events of the theatrical world; and their first performances fill the pit with conjecture and prognostication, as the first actions of a new monarch agitate nations with hope and fear"

Samuel Johnson

I heard Falco's leaving next week.
I dare you tell me I'm making it up...

good to see the house cleaning going today. Horrible to see another round of layoffs yesterday with good people who can least afford to be without a paycheck getting slashed & burned while fat ass Leonsis sits in his ivory tower and collects his paycheck and bonuses for running the company into the ground. Only people in his corner now are sitting there collecting their hefty paychecks while deciding what online college degree they can acquire with yet again no work to do or whether it will be pink booties or blue. Maybe instead of drinking the Koolaid they are drinking Pepto to calm those nervous stomachs. Hey gals, what goes around comes around and we are all waiting with anticipation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/...

I love to see the dysfunctional family of AOL feed on each other, both in Valleywag and in other blogs. I guess street cred at AOL is defined there by "Hey, look at the snarky comment I just made to prove I am a with-it insider", instead of innovating and winning on the field. What a bunch of losers you all must be. Revel while you can in the Yahoo Panama delays, Google's lack of focus on display advertising, and Microsoft's...well, maybe you can at least still kick them around in the playground... Times will be tougher sooner than you think, and you won't be able to feed the family on posted comments alone!

It's about time. Why haven't they canned Mike Kelly yet. He boasts of a Q3 47% gain, yet the online ad world is running at nearly 60% gain. No need for his continued arrogant, know everything attitude. Barrett's gone, now take out Mikey "the irish puss" Kelly.