AOL to launch 20+ new sites
Cory Bergman March 3rd, 2008
Similar to MTV Networks’ strategy (it created 32 sites in the last year), AOL says it plans to launch a dozen new sites in six months and as many 20 or 30 by the end of 2008. “We want to be sure we are appealing to as many consumers as we can,” said Bill Wilson, executive vice president of programming. In the last year, AOL has launched Spinner, a music site, and Asylum, a men’s lifestyle site (below). Both are designed with a TMZ-like blog format. New sites will likely follow similar models.
Meanwhile, VentureBeat has this to say about AOL’s strategy: “It’s hard to feel excited about a company that hopes to succeed simply by putting more of its product on the web rather than focusing on improving the sites they already have. It’s the old quantity versus quality argument.
3 Comments Add your own
1. Rick Ellis | March 4th, 2008 at 8:53 am
I think a lot of people have this gut reaction to any move by AOL. They see the company as an almost old-school business, ignoring the fact that for all its problems, AOL has a massive ad business and has already successfully launched several vertical sites.
I think this is a good idea, and it builds on AOL’s strengths, which include owning a lot of content, as well as having the ability to easily serve and sell ads across a wide number of sites.
2. Mark | March 4th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Agreed Rick,
Looking forward to diverse content by them. It is all free and each category appeals to someone. Whether they want mens lifestyle (asylum), style (stylelist), hip hop (theboombox), or video games (joystiq). It looks like they are in the right direction.
If it’s legit content then good for the internet!
3. oakling | March 4th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
*dryly* AOL still exists?
I wonder if they are going to be creating new content or just buying up and branding established blogs. Their strategies are bewildering to me; seems like they are always changing what business they are in.
I was a big AOL user back when they were essentially a BBS, in their first incarnation, when I could mosey around and do some RPGs over here, download fan fiction over there, participate in some themed (and 23973469873698725987259789873698 really horrible A/S/L-y unthemed) chat rooms in between…. I guess I can see the connection between that and the kind of content they still try to provide. But I don’t see how they are going to make any money doing it, not the way they made money when they were grabbing $20 from my parents’ pockets every month just to get us online. (In nineties dollars, no less!)
Leave a Comment
(Please keep URLs out of the comment body or the spam filter will block you.)Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed