Nobody outside of the building knew what we were doing. Not even the Post or Journal. With the haphazard office space and lack of room to accommodate everyone, it felt like a startup and we functioned as such. In those first few months, we had weekly happy hours and powwows. I terrorized the staff by flying the first-gen AR Drone above people’s desks. Our first holiday party was in the office. I won the ugly sweater contest that year, beating out the publisher. We all got shitfaced together and some of us passed out at the bar.

Nobody is crying for you when you are worth billions [AVC]

I believe that any company that claims that sort of worth [$2bn] should have the social responsibility to disclose what the laws are in the jurisdiction that they’re in. And if they’re not capable of that, then their worth isn’t that high.

Are we becoming cyborgs? [THE NEW YORK TIMES]

SINCE broadband began its inexorable spread at the start of this millenium, Internet use has expanded at a cosmic rate. Last year, the number of Internet users topped 2.4 billion — more than a third of all humans on the planet. The time spent on the screen was 16 hours per week globally — double that in high-use countries, and much of that on social media. We have changed how we interact. Are we also changing what we are?

Nations meet to discuss web rules [THE WALL STREET JOURNAL]

A key battleground at the conference will be a proposal from Russia and several African nations to wrest control of the Internet from Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, an organization that helps oversee the Internet, and other groups that are primarily based in the U.S.

The Russian proposal, leaked onWCITleaks.ORG, a website set up to counter the lack of transparency, calls for countries to “have equal rights to manage their Internet including in regard to the allotment, assignment and reclamation of Internet numbering, naming addressing and identification resources.”

AOL eliminates CMO position in another corporate restructuring [ADAGE]

The move comes as the company looks to decentralize marketing and push more consumer and B-to-B marketing dollars into individual digital publications and products at the company, such as Huffington Post, TechCrunch and the Advertising.com Group.

The company will not be hiring another CMO, but will be looking for a new communications chief. Caroline Campbell, a senior communications exec, will be leaving the company on Feb. 15. Ms. Campbell planned to leave AOL at the end of this year, but is staying on to help recruit a new chief communications officer.

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