Back in 2003, when I started working for AOL, there was a race to launch a digital music store for the Windows platform. The company to beat was Apple, who launched their Windows port of iTunes in October 2003. At that time, AOL was still claiming to have over 24 million subscribers. Clearly, if AOL could push out a digital music store offering as part of their service to that many customers before Apple, it might have made a difference.

But, wait … AOL launched its MusicNet offering as early as February 2003, you say? Beating Apple didn’t make much of a difference, after all, right?

I wasn’t directly involved in any of that work at AOL so I’m just speculating here, but I know a lot of effort went into rights management systems and DRM. I’m willing to bet a lot more effort went into getting all that stuff working than actual work on making the product–the music store–kick ass. I kept complaining that AOL should take advantage of its then-800-pound gorilla nature and spend its budget and manpower to invent and pioneer a business model that was DRM-less, rather than spend all that time trying to satisfy everyone’s wacky demands trying to implement DRM.

At the time, I kept hearing responses that all boiled down to: it’s not going to happen. I’ve learned that nothing happens unless someone makes it happen and AOL certainly could have been one to make it happen. This reminds me of a quote I love: “People aren’t resistant to change. Matter of fact, people will change just about anything in order to maintain the status quo.”

Fast-forward five years to 2008: Amazon, Walmart and even Apple (through iTunes Plus) are offering completely DRM-free music downloads. Somehow, things are changing from “not going to happen” to “it’s happening” to “it’s happened.” What makes me sad is that instead of rendering itself irrelevant, AOL could have pioneered this.

Regardless, I’m happy that we can finally start saying goodbye to DRM for real. Now, companies can start focusing on really innovating where it counts–identifying, funding, producing and distributing quality digital content–instead of on meaningless technology like DRM.

Tags: digital content, DRM, AOL, Apple, music

… or, “Everything old is new again!“

Yesterday, Google announced Protocol Buffers, their data interchange format and API libraries. Before I say anything else, I want to say I’m glad they did it: it uses neither XML nor ASN.1, which means someone at Google has a clue.

What bothers me is that yet again, what was old is new again–their on-the-wire encoding of the data is simply TLV and AOL has been using SNAC/TLV for at least 15 years now. However, AOL’s SNAC/TLV covers a lot more use cases than what Protocol Buffers does. Then, there’s AOL’s FLAP transport for SNAC which Google hasn’t even approached. There’s still a lot more “work” that Google has to do–or, just use what AOL’s already proven works.

Of course, Google gets the community pat-on-the-back because they released this publically whereas AOL still has it hidden behind some proprietary lock and key. AOL, this is another technology opportunity missed: you could have continued to keep your internal, proprietary technology relevant if you’d simply opened this stuff up, first. Now, you’ll have to continue to replace it–at a huge sunk cost–with “standards-based implementations.” Oops.

In the end, I’m glad to finally see someone not blindly drinking the XML Kool-Aid. Maybe there’s hope, yet.

Tags: Google, AOL

(Originally uploaded by julio.miyares.)

I took a quick trip into NYC today to have lunch with two ex-coworker friends at AOL, Julio and Rob.  As I’ve always said, AOL was a fantastic place to work because of the people and it’s what I miss most about not being there any more.

Julio was kind enough to take this picture of me today and he’s uploaded it to his Flickr photostream and he’s even used it as blog fodder.  I’m always ready to help a friend out, you know?

Tags: NYC, AOL, Julio Miyares, Flickr

I go away on vacation for a week and what news do I come back to? Jon Miller’s no longer CEO of AOL. I don’t want to say too much about this decision (Ted, Jason and Sree say plenty about it), but let me sum up my thoughts: they’re taking someone who proved his immense capability in three years of AOL’s most challenging times with someone who after 31 years only achieved #2 status at NBC. Draw your own conclusions.

Looks like I’m not alone in the “AOL’s recently unemployed” list. Jason Calacanis and Sree Kotay are also on it, now. The next few weeks will be very interesting to see who else is on it.

Update: Holly is also on the list. As of December 1, so will David Habib, apparently. Ryan Block suggests that Tina Sharkey is leaving AOL, too.

Update: December 14th brings more news: Carl Hutzler, Eric O’Laughlen.

Update: On January 13, 2007, C.K. Sample III announces his resignation from AOL, too.

Tags:
AOL,
Jon Miller,
NBC,
Randy Falco,
Ted Leonsis,
Jason Calacanis,
Sree Kotay

I know news travels fast, but I’m betting there are some folks out there who haven’t heard yet: As of this past Monday, October 30th, I no longer work for AOL. My position was eliminated as part of the ongoing layoffs. Now, you know. So, what does this mean for me?

I truly believe in the cliché that “every time one door closes, another one opens.” This is a tremendous opportunity for me as part of my continuous evaluation of my life. It gives me a moment to think clearly and pursue choices that weren’t as convenient before. I can make a serious attempt at getting Panoptic (my mostly idle consulting business) finally into gear. I can explore new employment opportunities. I can even work on some of the more risky business ventures that I’ve been sitting on for quite some time.

With regard to AOLserver, I was passionate about it before joining AOL and will remain involved with it long after. I firmly believe in the technology’s capability as well as the growing community of users and supporters of it. Through Panoptic, I even hope to be able to spend more time devoted to AOLserver, now that I “own my own time” again.

What all this means is that if you have a project in mind that you think might be a good fit for me, don’t hesitate to let me know. I’d be happy to either bid on the work in response to your RFP, or work out a reasonable hourly rate and work with you on a time and materials basis, or entertain other possibilities. Nothing is out of the question at this point: the opportunities are endless.

Tags:
AOL,
layoffs,
Dossy Shiobara,
Panoptic,
AOLserver