Will Speaking

I've been traveling for 2 weeks now, and today head back to Santa Cruz via SFO.    I am looking forward to being back in the Mountain View campus (my next travel is Feb 19th, so I will be on site for a few weeks).     Reflecting on this trip - Dulles->Bangalore->Dublin, I come back to my "All about the people" jingle that I often say, and probably cause some eyes to roll.     But it really is - we've got some really good people in many locations working on great products and services.       Dulles - the team working on community has really focused and shipped updates to AIMPages, Message Boards, AIM Host, Web IM's etc.   For a group that previously was not focused "on the web", I say 2006 was great example of focusing on the Web areas, learning new skills and delivering.      AIMPages has ways to go - but it's adding 5000 + profiles per day now -- up vastly from bet...

The team here in Dublin (around 15 people) focuses on the following: Member Directory - AOL Member Directory still gets a lot of traffic - for a product that has not been updated for sometime.  We are looking at doing some small updates to the product, to ease migration to AIMPages. AIM Pages Module Gallery/Directory is built here.  This means both the front end and the backend.    Some new work coming here to make it much easier to add new features to your page with "One Click". AIM Pages Search . Check out the search on AIMpages at the end of this week to see the people browser. I think this will get a ton of hits, since you can go through aimpages in alphabetical order - which is very nice. You could waste hours of time doing this. The team is close to the Idioum localization team.  The AIMPages product is looking to get localized around March timeframe - this important for the growth of this product.  

Off topic (for sure)... But who has noticed that Coca-Cola and Diet Coke taste so much better in Europe and India, than the USA.  I don't know why, but it just does.    I think we need to do a taste test.  Or look at the ingredients as to why.      Then again, Kit Kat's - another great staple of my diet - taste better in Dublin than in Bangalore. I'd put the taste of a kit kat best in dublin, and bangalore and usa are equal.   Now back to regular blogging.

Well I am back now with my secure id card, I got a new one in the Dublin office.  Wow - I was lost... without my secur id, I could do nothing... blog,  check email, IM... It was part of my life gone. Now I am back. I have much to catch up on ;-)

In the past 3 days, we've worked hard to review projects, meet people and just get to know folks in BDC.   Oh, also have ate far too much food. The Social Media team here does the following: Groups - the new groups product and service is being driven from this location with Dev, QA and PJM located here.   The team is rolling out the new versions of groups in phases.    The plan is to have groups at the center of "communities" so in aimpages, you can carry these groups around.      STAF (or Send to a Friend) - this is the utility that sends emails and IM's on a programming channel page.  It's not meant for products, more for channels and articles. What looks to be a simple send an email, requires a lot of backend work (e.g. so no SPAM is sent....).    Chat - the backend chat system that supports AOL and AIM is located here, as well as the new work (jointly with userplane) to deploy the new chat sys...

The BDC and BKC teams here really surprised Maneesh Dhir - and I was lucky to be invited.    Essentially it was congratulating Maneesh on his new and expanded role.  The team really cheered him along.  And of course, alittle bit of a "roast" too...   I'll get the photos / video uploaded when I am back (I forgot my USB cord for my camera).  

A productive day in our BDC offices.  The office here is bright and cheery with a great "buzz" to it.     Bright walls add a lot to make it seem fun :-)  I'll take a photo and upload when I am back.      

I know Mike might not like this, but I am writing this anyway to say "thanks". I'd like to spotlight someone in our AOL Silicon Valley team who has just done a tremendous job on many fronts.   This is Mike Macadaan.    As a director, he does not qualify for the quarterly awards we had last year ,  But I'd still like to say a big "thanks" to Mike for all his great work, passion and energy he brings to our campus and to AOL and (most important) our products. Mike has done alot in the "outreach" area for AOL Silicon Valley - from brining in folks to speak, to going to conferences,   podcasting... pitching ideas for future conferences (that get carried out).. to smaller things that make big impacts like the Mashup shirts,  or the AOL logos in Shasta...   all great ideas that get carried through.     Additionally, the innovation "process" (I use that loosely - since it's more a style) worked well for M...

I am travelling to Bangalore / Dublin for the next 10 days...

The visit went well - Randy and Ron got to talk to a lot of people.   But I know not everyone - but they will be back. We had just 30 mins of time, and it went fast. They liked the energy of the place, the location and the great work that has been done here!  So great kudo's for everyone who works here. Thank you!

Our very own Naveed Anwar was interviewed by the TopCoder team.   Check it out here.

I feel that greetings or ecard sites are ripe for a "web 2.0" makeover.   Today I sent an ecard to Frank, but it took me a few times to find a greetings  / ecard site that was OK.  I stumbled across "MSN eCards" in the UK. I've checked AOL Greetings, Yahoo Greetings, American Greetings, Hallmark -- but they are actually all similar.  AOL and Yahoo offer some free cards,  but try and upsell you on the paid version.   Hallmark is a bit better - looks like nearly all the ecards are free.      What I'd like is : - Send an eCard to my friends phone and myspace page - make it sing and dance on the phone.   - Let me have some fun creating them - or at least customize them a bit more than the standard greeting. - Match the web site to the theme of the card. If I'm looking for a funny card, make it look fun, if I am looking for a get well soon, make it look.. um, well like it's getting better. What do others th...

I've walked between HQ and CC1 many times.. It's a long corridor, and thank goodness for the great music and artwork to get you through it.  It's been updated this time with a theme "My Life Online".   See details here.

I had finally moved from a simple mobile phone (i.e. one that just makes calls) to a PDA type one at the end of December. Mark Vitkus and Dave Biggs showed me the Motorola Q phones they got.  And with the Time Warner discount, it was really good value for money (I thought).    I've been using the new "Q" phone for about a week now, and it works well. It runs Windows Mobile edition, and so far hasn't required a 3 finger salute to reboot it :-)     Seriously though, I was having fun with it....  Then of course the iPhone is announced.    I think everyone has summed up this already. But Wow.... what a great looking, user friendly phone....      So now I have a geeky "Q",  and I want a hip "iPhone".  :-) 

We are still waiting for final confirmation, but Randy Falco and Ron Grant may be in the AOL Silicon Valley office next week for an hour or two... stay tuned - more details soon!

CES is in full swing. Here's a good interview with Kevin Conroy, the head of AOL Products, at the Las Vegas event.  See more on UnCut Video.  

A very good post on Employee Central on some of the plans for Mapquest for 2007.  Take a look at this post with the GM of Mapquest.

I'd like to find out who is blogging (either a company blog or outside company)... It would be good to know.... Here's one I just found out about.

AOL is working on extensions into Second Life - which look like a lot of fun. I just had my "Second Life for Dummies" crash course (reason : I am being asked for resources to build the companion web site).  We will have an AOL island, with lots of interesting things.  Anyway, if anyone is into "Second Life" or "Virtual 3D worlds" let me know.  We will need to do some all hands on deck testing on this one soon, so looking for help. (Note to self : How could I have missed out the entire virtual world aspect of things? I have never really played these games, except for the Sims years ago).

The AOL Pictures team has launched an updated version of Woohoo, and boy does this look like a smasher.   You can create woohoo's in many different styles (some real nifty ones),   email them or embed on a page.   They are based on public albums - via tags or album names.       Simply upload your photos to AOL Pictures Gallery, tag them and woohoo it!  Some samples below. http://woohoo.aim.com