Incoming clusterfuck for AOL, the lumbering online media calcification that won't stop lumbering: a paid subscription for a bunch of boring services you can find somewhere else. It even has a silly name: "Gathr."

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong is trying to sell corporate advertisers and Wall Street investors on the idea of AOL as a home for original online programming "featuring personalities such as Gwynneth Paltrow, Sarah Jessica Parker, Hank Azaria and Nicole Richie." Happy Advertising Week, everyone.

As a lovely followup to recent discussions of gender inclusivity in tech, here's the first presentation from the AOL-owned TechCrunch Disrupt 2013 startup conference: an app called Titstare, presented by two grinning Australian dudes, exactly as tasteless as it sounds.

King Tim the Terrible just shelled out some major cash to give AOL a makeover as a media monster, not your uncle's ancient homepage—but according to a new report by AdWeek, it might have purchased itself some big problems.

It turns out, even Tim Armstrong finds Tim Armstrong obnoxious—the troubled chief of AOL just sent an apology email to his company for firing a subordinate on a conference call.

More bleak leaks out of AOL's local news network, Patch: Jim Romenesko got his hands on two internal emails asking staffers to make more sales. Asking is one term, pleading, in a panic, is another. You never want your boss to say "We had $36K day yesterday, when we need to be having $100K+ days."

With a thousand nervous staffers and executives on the line, AOL's CEO Tim Armstrong announced a bloody swath of new layoffs via conference call. He also, a sort of Shakespearean firing-within-a-firing, axed a creative director on the spot for allegedly taking a picture. Here's the audio.

Things are a little tense over at AOL, with hundreds of Patch staffers facing layoffs as the hyperlocal news service continues to slide. And it's not just them: during a meeting about the layoffs, AOL's chief allegedly canned an exec just for trying to capture his likeness.

Less than a week after sweeping layoffs, AOL just made a gigantic acquisition: a video ad service called Adap.tv. If the company is ever going to save itself, it's going to be because of a move like this.

It's been a couple months since the last employee throat-slitting over at AOL, but the peaceful streak ends today: more firings across many departments while a new exec summers on Martha's Vineyard.

Bebo was supposed to be a very, very big social network—so big, AOL paid $850 million for it back in 2005. Ha, ha, ha. That never happened. It's dead. But today, the site's founder says he's buying it back for 1/850th of the sale price, just for "fun." Fun! This is what's fun, now.

Hundreds of eager people are lining up outside AOL right now, hoping to be picked for a $700-per-day internet news anchor gig. First they have to audition on a live camera. Nerve-racking. What's more nerve-racking is that the whole thing is streaming for us to watch. Oy.

Even after (or maybe because of?) spending the first half of this year making headlines for layoffs, AOL still has money. At least, enough to put its logo across a hillside "villa party" in one of the swankiest places in the world.

Super-local news isn't paying what they thought it would, and Patch continues to implode. Today is a bloodletting day.

A (soon to be axed) tipster tells us AOL is canning its entire domestic tech support team, to be replaced by outsourced staff. I hope you don't have any future problems with your... AOL thing.

AOL Music lasted fifteen years before it was destroyed late last month without warning or much of a funeral. After talking with a survivor (of sorts) from the wreckage, you have to wonder how anyone could last longer than fifteen minutes.

Pour one out for the staff of Spinner and AOL Music—the entire operation is shuttered as of today, after 14 years.