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Comment on Michael Arrington: Editorial Independence

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I briefly worked for AOL on the Winamp team right after they acquired both Winamp and Time Warner. The story that an AOL deal ends up in a total cluster fuck is 10 years old.

With any knowledge of recent history, it is boggling anyone thought this acquisition would work and I don't believe for a second Arrington is writing in earnest.

SHOUTcast's recent week-long on and off outage and subsequent crippling of their APIs is evidence enough of how seriously (or lack thereof) they take some of their properties.

Oh, to live in a world where MySpace was acquired by AOL instead of Rupert Murdoch.

The life of any app is measured in years, the best of which is when you sell to a "larger organization that can use its widespread exposure to further grow the community" while it dies a couple of years later. Just look at Yahoo!'s portfolio. Arrington wanting his baby back is a bunch of BS.

Reddit would be an anomaly, I'm happy to say, although it still has a ways to grow out of its niche.

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