@1: I would have gone with "Dear Former AOL Blogger"

My initial response - reading the email out of context - was "that's not very condescending -- I probably read 100 more condescending corporate emails a week"; then I realized (a) they weren't firing me in those emails and (b) 100 wrongs also don't make this one any more right.

Workers? You actually think they have any obligation to the large group of sad lonely bloggers that think their opinion on something (that has probably been articulated better elsewhere) matters? Why would they? Anyone can sign up as a 'freelance' bullshitter, and they certainly aren't professionals. AOL is a massive business unlike the stranger and can't treat their 'freelance' bloggers like little princessess who have reached the peak of their career.

Second, blogs and the word blog are retarded. Especially blogs hosted by bigger sites. It is like the articles written on Yahoo about stupid things that usually are incorrect in the first place. YES I KNOW I AM COMMENTING ON A BLOG, but it is has some sort of responsibility to tell the truth, and news.

And lastly, who cares how they started the letter off. If you are so pitiful that your life would be made much better by them writing a beautiful prose of a letter telling you you're fired (FROM A BLOG) than whatever they wrote than you're fucked. If anything it should have been a more concise, "fuck off."

"P.S. Please help yourself to as many 'AOL free trial' CD-ROMs as you'd like!"

@4: I think someone needs a hug.

@ Says the person that reads blogs and comments on blogs. Not just regular old "retarded" sounding blog. But a blog called Slog. Slog... that's not a "retarded" word at all. Someone's a little Sniffles Magee because his only follower is his mother. And perhaps my mother.

While @4 does indeed seem like he needs a hug, he's not wrong. AOL "bloggers" are mostly churning out thousands and thousands of worthless "content" that no one ever looks at -- or, if they do, because they've been tricked by some stupid SEO garbage, they instantly regret it. The entire web is filling up with hit-driven bullshit nowadays; but the only worse than hit-driven SEO bullshit is bullshit that isn't even interesting.

AOL is never going to dig themselves out of their massive financial hole by continuing to pay these people even the few pennies they earn. They're never going to dig themselves out, period, obviously, but still.

The idea that "freelance bloggers" can earn the kind of living that real journalists used to by posting the kind of numbnuttery that fills sites like Huffington, to say nothing of the even worse stuff that fills the rest of AOL, is simply a falsehood. It's never going to happen. Compelling writing about compelling subjects presented in a compelling medium is what wins the day, in 2011 same as it was in 1711. All three of those things are necessary. Figure out how to do them online, or do them somewhere else, or die. There are no other choices.

@8 and the iPad will never achieve market dominance, right, Fnarf?

While it is true that most blogs are more chaff than kernels of wisdom, it is also true that the method and means of content distribution are shifting as we speak (or write or type or whatever we use, even if it's Wii-enabled head-mounted laser-pointers).

The concept that we can see what Will Be now, while most of us are stuck in What Used To Be and unfamiliar with What Is, is akin to people during the Cold War talking about what would happen when the Russian Empire fell. And just about as useful.

@9, you're a fucking idiot.

You have no freaking idea what I'm talking about.

The iPad is not a content provider. And your insights into the future are less valuable than my dog's. And I don't even have a dog.

@4 You are an asshole, but I forgive you.

@Fnarf You are correct, regardless. I was one of those godawful SEO-bloggers, and while I generally made the attempt to make my posts at least semi-useful, I can say that for $25 per 500 words it was awfully hard to commit to a standard of writing I was happy with. I got one of those e-mails, and I can't say I was cut up about it. But I saw the writing on the wall from the day AOL acquired HuffPo, so I've been steeling myself for it. The only benefit to working for AOL was being able to say "I work for AOL," which seemed to impress PR people. Shitty, I know, but it was worth a few free trips.

Anyway, they treat their workers like chattel and they pay them crap, so it's no surprise the content is sub-par. But hey we've been "invited to pitch stories," so yay?

AOL, I don't know if they are connected with Yahoo, I think so, but either way their 'freelance' writers are the exact same crowd, and I just thought you'd like to see the type of pulitzer material it is.
http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/amplifi…

I'd pay extra if we could have a counterpoint from Fnarf's nonexistent dog for every one of Will in Seattle's posts.