AOL: You Can Call it a Comeback

AOL: You Can Call it a Comeback | NBC Bay Area: "Who'd a thunk it? AOL is doing some pretty cool stuff. Yes, AOL. The company showed off new initiatives to reporters in a casual briefing Thursday night and while I can't speak for others, I walked away impressed.

The new AOL is much different than the old America Online, a company famous for the squeak of dialup modems and 'You've got mail!'

The first fix? Move some of the best minds away from the company's headquarters in old fashioned Virginia and to the hip and happening Palo Alto. Hire Stanford grads (lots of Stanford grads).

In fact, AOL's west coast offices offer no-strings-attached incubator space to Stanford students with the hopes the young computer scientists will stick around and take jobs at AOL. Even if they don't, they fill the offices with the young 'can do' attitude that an old-media company so desperately needs. The new west coast offices, with bright colors and snarky signs feels -- dare I say it -- Googley.

AOL is working on a number of new projects, one of which is predictably code named Phoenix - rising from the ashes and all that.

'We no longer say 'turnaround'' says West Coast head Brad Garlinghouse. 'We've already turned the company around. Now we're concentrating on comeback.'

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