Skip to Content

Massively looks at the best free to play games
AOL Tech

Filed under: Business, Design, Internet, Social Software

Ryan Block interviews the SVP of AOL's new web portal



The reaction to AOL's new web portal wasn't entirely warm, as it looks just a little too much like one of its major competitors. Instead of scratching his head on the matter, our own Ryan Block of Weblogs Inc. / Engadget decided to ask David Liu, SVP of AOL Portals, five questions on the new design and its motivations. As you would imagine from a VP, Liu's answers were riddled with PR-speak that doesn't actually reveal much other than 'yea, we were inspired,' but his final answer does offer some interesting snippets about an upcoming revamp of myAOL.com, another of the company's portals (really guys - how many do you need?). Liu promises some intriguing innovation for the new portal, and even MIchael Arrington of TechCrunch was apparently impressed with some early demos he got his hands on.

While we wait to see those promises fulfilled, check out Ryan's interview with David Liu to gain at least a little insight into why AOL's new portal looks just a little too familiar.

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

CiviballsI have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Microsoft Security Essentials
Chromium Pre-Alpha on CrunchBang Linux
Safari 4 Beta
10 Firefox themes that don't suck
IE8 RC1
Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party
Download Squad at the Crunchies
WordPress 2.7
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Windows 7 Hands On
Comodo Internet Security
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff
Adobe Lightroom 1.1

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

Download Squad bloggers (30 days)

#BloggerPostsCmts
1Lee Mathews7579
2Jay Hathaway681
3Brad Linder664
4Jason Clarke312
5Grant Robertson710
6Christina Warren28
7Nik Fletcher20

More Tech Coverage

AOL Radio