Comments on: Kevin Conroy Speaks Spanish? (Leaves AOL for Univision) http://www.joemanna.com/blog/kevin-conroy-speaks-spanish-leaves-aol-for-univision/ Joe Manna's Personal Blog. Community manager, social media strategist and very opinionated. Tue, 16 Mar 2010 08:42:27 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Marah Marie http://www.joemanna.com/blog/kevin-conroy-speaks-spanish-leaves-aol-for-univision/comment-page-1/#comment-48704 Marah Marie Sat, 17 Jan 2009 07:52:09 +0000 http://www.joemanna.com/blog/?p=1033#comment-48704 Good post, Joe. Sorry I'm late to it but I've been crazy busy...you explained the hardship the closing down of those products created for AOL users, and the loyalty that was lost as a result of those closings, better than I could. I tend to stay away from the emotional fallout of things unless I'm really ranting, which is exactly where you went with this. Conroy's destructive path was so wide that even here where you wrote: "Thank you for destroying the user experience the best you could. The only products that remained after your tenure are AOL Mail, AIM, AOL Message Boards and Chat Rooms..." I paused because I couldn't help but think to myself that <a href="http://anti-aol.livejournal.com/102267.html" rel="nofollow">the message boards got partially destroyed</a> too, along with <a href="http://anti-aol.livejournal.com/104952.html" rel="nofollow">email</a> - at least overseas, for the free users. And AOL wouldn't so much as do a press release to discuss either one of those decisions - a very deliberate "oversight" on their part because they don't want the negative backlash from the media and blogs over it - which still ticks me off to this day. What I have the hardest hard time letting go of is not that someone - anyone - makes a mistake or fails to tell the truth, because we all do that from time to time - but that the person or people responsible for it won't admit it and make appropriate statements and apologies as needed, even once they're called on what they did by many people. That sort of behavior is heinous, and that is exactly the sort of behavior many of the people at AOL consistently display. Good post, Joe. Sorry I’m late to it but I’ve been crazy busy…you explained the hardship the closing down of those products created for AOL users, and the loyalty that was lost as a result of those closings, better than I could. I tend to stay away from the emotional fallout of things unless I’m really ranting, which is exactly where you went with this. Conroy’s destructive path was so wide that even here where you wrote:

“Thank you for destroying the user experience the best you could. The only products that remained after your tenure are AOL Mail, AIM, AOL Message Boards and Chat Rooms…”

I paused because I couldn’t help but think to myself that the message boards got partially destroyed too, along with email – at least overseas, for the free users. And AOL wouldn’t so much as do a press release to discuss either one of those decisions – a very deliberate “oversight” on their part because they don’t want the negative backlash from the media and blogs over it – which still ticks me off to this day.

What I have the hardest hard time letting go of is not that someone – anyone – makes a mistake or fails to tell the truth, because we all do that from time to time – but that the person or people responsible for it won’t admit it and make appropriate statements and apologies as needed, even once they’re called on what they did by many people. That sort of behavior is heinous, and that is exactly the sort of behavior many of the people at AOL consistently display.

]]> By: Brenda http://www.joemanna.com/blog/kevin-conroy-speaks-spanish-leaves-aol-for-univision/comment-page-1/#comment-48700 Brenda Mon, 12 Jan 2009 13:06:19 +0000 http://www.joemanna.com/blog/?p=1033#comment-48700 Regarding message boards, do you still have any ins with the message board "whiz kids" (ha!) at AOL? If you do, could you please let them know that the message board search hasn't been working correctly for TWO MONTHS now. Don't they ever test their product? I know that in the past they never fixed the search feature until notified by someone else within AOL. Now there is no one that is responsive to users' e-mails. Regarding message boards, do you still have any ins with the message board “whiz kids” (ha!) at AOL? If you do, could you please let them know that the message board search hasn’t been working correctly for TWO MONTHS now. Don’t they ever test their product? I know that in the past they never fixed the search feature until notified by someone else within AOL. Now there is no one that is responsive to users’ e-mails.

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