AOL’s Q4 earnings today saw that company (which owns TechCrunch) finally make a turnaround, after 8 years of decline, into revenue growth, with overall sales of $599.5 million. But there are still a lot of areas that are seeing flat or declining revenues, and some that are loss-making: among those is AOL’s hyperlocal effort Patch. On the investor call today, CEO Tim Armstrong admitted that the… → Read More
Traditional publishers and fledgling digital publications alike are trying to find the best ways to monetize their content on the Web and take advantage of the benefits offered by hyperlocal content and the targeted advertising that (should) come with it. PaperG, an advertising technology startup founded in 2007, is trying to become that go-to solution for small and established online publishers… → Read More
Our parent company AOL is having a rough time making money from Patch, its rapidly expanding network of local news sites, and that’s not its only problem. Today, group buying website BuyWithMe announced that it has recruited Charlie Gray, formerly Executive Vice President at Patch, as its new ‘Chief People Officer’.
BuyWithMe, which rivals the likes of Groupon and LivingSocial in the United… → Read More
In its last earnings report, AOL revealed that it poured $40 million into its hyperlocal news platform Patch in the quarter. It’s no secret that AOL, Arianna Huffington and CEO Tim Armstrong have high hopes for Patch. And today, the company is announcing that that Patch will launch 33 new sites in New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Carolina —the first three states to hold primaries in 2012. In… → Read More
AOL and its subsidiary Patch this morning announced the launch of PatchU, a new network of partnerships between local Patch publications and journalism schools, colleges and universities to help prepare the next generation of journalists for future endeavors in the ever-evolving new media landscape.
The initiative, which debuted this fall, offers internship and coursework opportunities at local… → Read More
For the past two years, Fwix has been building a hyperlocal news site for cities and neighborhoods around the country in a very automated fashion. Its homepage for every city has been three columns filled with recent news and blog headlines, along with other local data like weather (see second screenshot below). Today, it is scrapping that approach to become more of a hyperlocal places… → Read More
When AOL bought hyperlocal news site Patch in June, 2009, it covered five towns in Connecticut and New Jersey. On Tuesday, it will open its 100th Patch, and by the end of the year it plans to open 400 more for a total of 500.
I recently visited AOL’s headquarters to learn more about what Patch is all about. “We look at what we are doing as digitizing towns,” says Patch president Warren Webster… → Read More
AT&T found a defect in their Alcatel-Lucent equipment about a month ago that, under certain conditions, throttles upload speeds to 100kbps. This of course is not a good thing, so they’ve been working on the problem and identified a software defect that was causing the problem. Good news is, the patch has been released and is currently being pushed out to everyone using the effected… → Read More
It’s no secret that AOL is aggressively building out its content strategy. Today at TechCrunch Disrupt, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong says that the company now employs 4,000 journalists, 3,500 of which are part-time or freelance. As of last October, the company employed roughly 3,000 journalists.
That’s pretty decent growth in a matter of six months. Of course, AOL has launched a number of content… → Read More
We recently learned that AOL is pouring money ($50 million to be exact) into Patch, a hyperlocal news platform that operates local news sites for 41 small towns and communities in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut and California. Now AOL is launching a charitable offshoot of Patch, called Patch.org, which will support the funding of hyperlocal news sites in “underserved… → Read More
Yesterday brought the news that AOL sold Buy.at, the affiliate marketing network it bought in early 2008, to UK network Digital Window. AOL acquired Buy.at for a rumored $125 million two years ago. Today, AOL filed a 10-K report that revealed that AOL only sold Buy.at for $17 million, taking a hit of a whopping $108 million.
Another fascinating tidbit in the filing is related to hyperlocal news… → Read More
Even though they haven’t really found a big audience yet, hyperlocal news sites are becoming a hot commodity. In June, AOL bought Patch for $7 million, and today MSNBC acquired EveryBlock. EveryBlock was previously funded by a grant from the Knight Foundation, which ended in June. The five employees will now work at MSNBC.
The price was not disclosed, but like the Patch acquisition, it is not… → Read More
When your main seed investor becomes the CEO of AOL, it does have its fringe benefits. Today, AOL announced its acquisition of two local startups: Patch and Going. AOL’s new CEO Tim Armstrong is a seed investor in Patch, which offers hyperlocal news for small towns and communities. In a note he sent out today to employees, which we’ve obtained from AOL, he notes that he recused himself from the… → Read More
According to researchers at the SANS Internet Storm Center (ISC), an unpatched PC will last in the wilds of the Web less than four minutes before being attacked and compromised. That’s faster than most people can run a mile, and as ISC’s Survival Time sitepoints out, faster than it takes to download most patches. The ISC has an interactive graph showing the rise and recent plummet of unpatched… → Read More
Just as I was talking to my friend about rolling a new Horde character on Burning Blade, out comes this new WoW patch. Dubbed “The Black Temple”, this 256MB patch will allow players to enter, well The Black Temple! Players can fight Illidan the Betrayer before realizing they have plenty of other goodies associated with this patch to check out. There’s a new PVP arena, new… → Read More
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