In that blog entry, AOL was just beginning to lay the foundation for this new strategy. Well, it appears they are now moving forward and quite aggressively. What were they waiting for? Were they waiting for the advertising business to come back a bit from the recession of last summer and fall?
Let's take a look at some of the new moves made by AOL and Tim Armstrong.
- Armstrong has hired a few more Google executives including David Eun who served as the vice president of strategic partnerships at Google. David will be responsible for AOL's 80+ content sites.
- Armstrong also hired Sashi Seth who was in charge of the monetization of YouTube while at Google. At AOL he will be the SVP of global advertising products -- their new performance based advertising model I assume.
- They are pushing hard for original rather than repurposed content on their various sites within the MediaGlow network. Currently 80% of content on their various sites is new and unique -- I would say they are succeeding.
- Armstrong recently launched Seed.com, a new venture that aims to make it easy and cheap for freelancers to create and publish stories and articles -- what a great way to support their goal of obtaining original content right?
- AOL also bought StudioNow, a platform for creating and distributing online video -- again making it easier for others to create that original content they so desire.
A lot happening at AOL. I cannot wait to see how it all plays out. Being one that grew up with AOL, I wish them luck.
Perry
Sources:
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=121917
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/aol_dials_up_results_mrGEcJ4zxcO6khtGXKbWgM
