Kevin Werbach

"Misused" is too strong. He quoted something I actually said, and noted that I expressed contary views. As someone who speaks to the press a lot, I've been misquoted and quoted out of context -- this wasn't at that level.

My point was that the reporter's view of AOL (expressed in the story) and my view aren't the same. We agree that AOL missed the boat the past six years, but not about its future prospects. There's nothing inappropriate in that; the way the quote was used just left room for misinterpretation.

It was interesting to read how that piece came out. I told the reporter I was a contrarian on the topic, and actually thought AOL was well-positioned. He used the one (backward-looking) negative sentence of my 3-paragraph email, and vaguely paraphrased the rest.

Anyway, my point was that "social network" does not equal "Friendster/MySpace". And that AOL actually has all the hard-to-acquire assets and experience it will take to monetize social software in the broad sense.

As you point out, no one expects much of AOL these days, which is a good place to be. Keep in mind that Yahoo! was seen as a dog 3 years ago, until Semel & Co. turned things around. Good luck....

-k-

Hey, and don't forget that Leeroy Jenkins made a cameo appearance on the midterm!