An anonymous tip dropped into our inbox, claiming that Jason Calacanis, one of the co-founders of Weblogs Inc., and architect of the new Netscape has resigned from AOL, following the resignation of Jon Miller.
On his blog, Jason says no comment. When we IMed him, he offered the same, No Comment. If the news is indeed true – we are still trying to nail down the details – then AOL might have lost one of the handful of people who were outspoken enough to shake AOL from its polite slumbering ways. Not many saw eye-to-eye with Jason, but most agreed that his heart was in the right place.
On the ouster of Miller, we are as confounded as you are. Falco, despite his resume, isn’t the kind of executive you would put in charge when your main rival is someone as nimble as Google, or as cash rich as Microsoft or as dogmatic as Yahoo. Sudden executive changes when a company is in transition to a new free model can cause anxiety amongst rank-and-file.
Falco’s appointment is another proof of the bumbling ways of Time Warner, a company known to have the uncanny ability to turn a pot of gold into a bucket of mud water. On a side note, just wondering how the great Time Warner movie machine is doing these days in terms of profits.
50 bucks says he’s going to work for murdoch…
that would be good for murdoch.. he needs someone to oversee their $6 billion operation
You mean that Calacanis, right after having mastered the art of running a $1 Billion company (ahah. where? when?), now departs for greener pastures? Makes sense.
I bet they looked at the Netscape traffic stats for the last months before taking him on board.
Looks like the Calcanis PR flacks are working overtime in varnishing this guy’s image: if he quit/was fired/got bored and took a flyer, Calcanis was no rainmaker…WTF is Netscape?!! Guy was good for a quote or two at a tradeshow but he’s no Amanda Congdon… And as for going to work for Murdoch, he might need a stable-boy or a valet-parker…BTW, why the hell don’t you guys ask serious questions like why the hell Terry Semel STILL WORKS IN THIS INDUSTRY!!!
“Art Vandalay,” from Vandalay Industries, no doubt? Are you into latex? Apparently you are, or at least you have some beef with Calacanis that’s big enough to slag him anonymously. Coward.
Getting rid of Jason is capital-D dumb … he was the one thing AOL/Netscape had going for it.
(At least from the admittedly myopic/narrow view of the web 2.0 world.)
Rather amusingly, “FALCO!” was the codename on ye olde Need To Know newsletter for “dotcom gone kaput”
http://www.ntk.net/1998/02/13/#OPERATIONFALCO
I’d have to question Jason having a heart that was useful. Or ideas that were his own and not stolen from others. AOL is a company of smart outspoken people. They just don’t spend their days screaming to the press about their great ideas, they try to change from the inside out. Slow, frustrating, but potentially productive. Stop staring at the screaming baby on the podium and look around.
NYTimes repoorts that Miller didnt resign, he got fired. And that he didnt even know he was ifred until some reporter called him for a quote on his own firing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/17/technology/17aol.html?ref=business
Calacanis did not leave a great legacy at AOL. Netscape is a mess, the blog properties are stabalizing or declining, and “Weblogs Inc” has zero brand traction as a whole. There has been zero innovation in the past year.
Sure, if you’re deep into the “web 2.0” world, and have little experience in actually, you know, making money, it may seem that Calacanis was a “savior” or even important person at AOL. But in reality he was a one-trick pony who was good at talking like he had big ideas, but in reality was good at a very old-school thing: publishing.
Superb! (I wrote something else and then I read below that I aint supposed ter. So I deleted it.)