AllThingsD » Engadget

Can We Finally Say: Bye-Bye Booth Babes?

Joshua Weinberg — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 19:37:25 +0000

Isn’t it time for our industry to stop using “booth babes,” once and for all?

There used to be an annual tradition around Comdex — every year, a week or two after Comdex (and then later CES), InfoWorld or Computerworld would write an editorial complaining about the use of “booth babes” at the show.

These editorials and the maturing of our industry seemed to have had a great effect. Each year, there seem to be fewer and fewer booth babes at major tech shows. They are still there, just in smaller numbers.

Attitudes also continue to change. More and more companies are realizing that booth babes are out of place at tech shows. These companies have also begun to realize that booth babes may be a bad business move.

In writing this article, I Googled to find the gadget- and gamer blogs’ annual roundups of trade show booth babes, and was pleasantly surprised to find a comment from Daniel Cooper, an Engadget contributing editor, that said:

Oh, and regarding ‘booth babes:’ scantily clad women trying to tease the über-geeks at CES: if your product needs a semi-nude woman to sell it to nerds, you don’t have faith in your product.

As a launch consultant, I couldn’t agree more. Nowadays, to break through the noise, companies need an innovative product, a great user experience and clear communications. Booth babes provide none of these, and can even distract from the stories that companies are trying to tell. I have typically found that the companies using booth babes do not have much of substance to show, or are trying to mask other problems. And in the unusual case when it is a great product being promoted by a booth babe, many people miss it, because they make an assumption that it couldn’t be a great product if it is being promoted by a booth babe.

As we move into an era where we are no longer just selling technologies to enthusiasts but are selling to mainstream consumers, our industry’s collective attitude and image are important. This year, it was not an industry pub that was covering the issue, but the very mainstream BBC. Not only does this piece highlight the problem, but it tries to send the message that the industry can’t see what’s right in front of its face. If we don’t reform as an industry, we can expect more of the same. Every bit of negative attention focused on our industry is a moment when the media and customers are not focused on our industry’s products. And let’s not forget how many technology purchasing decisions are made by women. Is this the image we want to send these customers?

The industry has done a good job of encouraging women to move into science, math and technology, and the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) did a good thing in “divorcing” CES from the adult video show, but for the industry to not try to do something about booth babes sends a very mixed message.

For whatever reason, be it business, social or other, as an industry, we should actively encourage a move away from booth babes at tech trade shows, once and for all.

Unfortunately, the industry does not currently take a strong stand against booth babes and one prominent press event organizer, Pepcom, uses them at virtually all its events.

Gary Shapiro, CEO of the CEA, owners of CES, said “As long as they don’t violate show rules, I can’t do anything about it.” While creating rules banning booth babes will probably never work, that does not mean that organizations like the CEA and Pepcom and others should do nothing.

But Gary also says “… and if some companies think it works, they are going to use models in their booths.” And I think that is where the challenge is for our industry: Educate companies that booth babes do not work, and are not welcome.

As an industry, we should endeavor to teach companies that best practices for launching products, exhibiting at shows and sponsoring events is more about great products and clear messages than sexy women. These shows should begin to include text to this effect in their exhibitor and sponsorship manuals, and should work on other ways to discourage this practice. In addition, industry publications and blogs should stop publishing booth-babe roundups, and should not use pictures of scantily clad women showing off tech products.

Lets get together as an industry and, once and for all, say, “Bye-bye booth babes.”

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this issue.

AOL Names Jim Norton as New Head of Sales

Kara Swisher — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 18:00:00 +0000

AOL, which has had some turmoil in its executive ranks of late, has promoted Jim Norton to be its new head of sales.

The New York Internet company said Norton would be “responsible for sales on all of AOL’s owned & operated properties, including sites like The Huffington Post, Engadget, Stylelist and MapQuest,” as well as a range of other areas.

AOL has rejiggered its advertising execs and strategies several times in recent years, and Norton is not precisely replacing its former advertising head Jeff Levick (who left for Spotify) and is more akin to another top former AOL ad exec Mark Ellis (who left for Yahoo).

That job has now been folded into the portfolio of Chief Revenue Officer Ned Brody, to whom Norton will report.

“We need to become faster in our operations,” said Brody in an interview this morning about the shift. “We brought in Jim to bring in singular focus on selling.”

Brody said that AOL is working on how to increase the “value proposition” of its variety of advertising and marketing offerings and to quicken the process.

Norton came to AOL from Google in 2009 and before that worked in a wide range of ad jobs.

Here’s the official press release on the move:

JIM NORTON NAMED HEAD OF AOL SALES

New York, NY — December 9, 2011 — AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) and Ned Brody, Chief Revenue Officer, today announced the promotion of Jim Norton to head of AOL Sales. Effective today, Jim will be responsible for sales on all of AOL’s owned & operated properties, including sites like The Huffington Post, Engadget, Stylelist and MapQuest. Additionally, he will also lead the sales of all cross platform marketing solutions, including display/Project Devil initiative, video and mobile. This announcement is reflective of AOL’s commitment to putting the strongest leaders in place to service clients in the most efficient and effective manner. Jim will continue to report to Brody.

“Jim has proven himself within AOL to be a fantastic leader,” said Brody. “He not only has deep knowledge and incredible expertise in the marketplace, but a real ability to effect change.” Brody added, “Customers want the best products and packaged solutions all in a fast and efficient manner. Consolidation of leadership under Jim will place even more focus on putting our clients front and center and deliver on their goals and needs.”

“It’s a tremendous honor and opportunity to take on this new leadership role,” said Norton. “It allows me to continue to work with some of the best sales professionals in the business. It’s also a privilege to work with some of the world’s biggest brands.” He added, “We want to continue to be the preferred media partner for marketers and agencies.”

Jim joined AOL in 2009 and was SVP, AOL Advertising’s Advance Sales team, which focuses on national and regional advertisers across all categories, as well as new business. He was also VP of Product Sales working with AOL product teams on maximizing their offerings to advertisers, including MapQuest, Patch, AOL Mail, AOL Video and Mobile. He also managed AOL’s Search and Sponsored Listings business, and helped launch and manage AOL’s self service advertising platform, Ad Desk.

Jim has over 20 years of experience in the media business. Prior to joining AOL, he spent 3 years at Google most recently as National Sales Manager for Google’s Agency Activation team. Prior to that role, he was a Senior Account Executive on the National Tech B2B team servicing many of the leading global tech marketers. He’s also held a number of traditional sales and marketing roles, including four years as Sales Manager at Tribune Broadcasting’s WLVI-TV (Boston’s WB), radio ad sales at Kiss 108FM and a variety of brand marketing roles at Miller Brewing Company and GMR Marketing. He’s a life long Bostonian and graduated from Boston College with a BA in Communications and BC’s Carroll Graduate School of Business with an MBA in Marketing and Technology. He’s married with three children and splits his time between Boston and New York City.

On The Verge of a New Tech Site, Which Finally Debuts

Kara Swisher — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 02:18:14 +0000

Tonight at 1 am PT, techies who have nothing else to do — that would be me! — can click onto a brand new tech site called The Verge.

Well, kind of — it’s the result of many months of work by the gang that defected from AOL’s popular Engadget tech powerhouse, set up temporary shop under the Web site name This Is My Next and busied themselves with creating The Verge.

I have another screenshot below of the new site that will be focused on news, reviews and features about tech, and which has been getting a final tweaking all today.

From my quick perusal, it has a vibrant and slick design, with a lot of packed boxes, swooshy movement and plenty of content.

Along with the launch, The Verge’s parent company — formerly doing business as SB Nation, focused on sports — will also transform into Vox Media.

In a chit-chat with Vox’s CEO Jim Bankoff, top exec Marty Moe and Josh Topolsky, The Verge’s Editor-in-Chief, the trio of former AOLers all said they were going to for the big time.

“We want to build the platform for talented native Web voices, in sports and tech for now, and then we plan to grow more verticals,” said Bankoff.

“We want to create more than a news site or blog about tech — the frustration at AOL was that we did not get the resources or manpower to realize that bigger vision,” said Topolsky.

(You’re speaking to the choir, brother!)

Said Moe: “We think this category has not had a large enough vision…not enough has been innovated over the years and we think it is a big opportunity.”

Topolsky said the site, along with a mass of original content from 30 writers, will also be helped by a strong database of information about all its topics and gadgets and also focus a lot on community input.

“What we want to do was graduate beyond the blog,” he said.

(Hmm…and here I just got the hang of this blog thing.)

Bankoff, who would not say how much Vox spent on launching The Verge — my back-of-the-envelope guess, several million dollars — said that costs were spread out between the tech and sports sites with centralized sales and product teams.

Initial launch sponsors are BMW, Sony and Samsung, said Moe, who is aiming to sell “major brand advertisers on the idea that we will be the premiere destination of consumer tech coverage.”

It has to grow past big sites like Engadget to do so, but Topolsky said that This Is My Next had three million unique visitors in the last month and more than 10 million page views.

“We have done that with a lot of editorials and in-depth reviews,” he said. “I think people are really hungry for great content and stories.”

As to competitors, Topolsky said that “this not to necessarily I win if you lose,” although his clear aim is to unseat sites like CBS-owned CNET, Engadget and Gawker Media’s Gizmodo and perhaps even newsier sites such as TechCrunch and AllThingsD (as if!).

“We are going to do the nuts and bolts stuff,” he said. “Somewhere between Engadget and Wired.”

Topolsky compared The Verge to a “boutique hotel — we have the same stuff everyone else has, but it is a much more elegant experience.”

Later, that will change, he promised, noting that “this is only version 1.0.”

Of course — but what else would you expect from a gadget site?

(Good luck and congrats to the entire The Verge team from AllThingsD!)

And here is another lovely screenshot, as promised:

New Tech Gadget News Site Name: The Verge

Kara Swisher — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 23:00:14 +0000

A new tech site, which has been founded by a number of former staffers of AOL-owned Engadget and operating temporarily as This Is My Next, will be announcing its new name — The Verge — during an appearance by Editor-in-Chief Josh Topolsky tonight on Jimmy Fallon’s late-night television talk show. The Verge, whose charter sponsor will be BMW, will debut in the fall as a new competing gadget property for the well-funded content start-up SB Nation.

Former Top Editor Makes Another Talent Raid on AOL's Engadget for New Competing Gadget Site

Kara Swisher — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 16:24:25 +0000

I love the smell of blog wars in the morning!

Acting as Facebook often does to Google, a new site started by former Engadget editor Josh Topolsky just hired away yet another passel of tech journalists from the giant gadget news and reviews organization.

Editorial movement is not uncommon on tech news sites, but this level of it from one site to another is somewhat, um, aggressive.

Engadget, which is owned by AOL, is one of the largest tech-focused sites on the Web. Topolsky left his editor-in-chief job there in March.

By April, he had grabbed eight prominent Engadget staffers who had left the huge tech site amid editorial tensions, in order to start a new competing gadget property for the well-funded sports content start-up SB Nation.

Now, sources said, Topolsky has added Thomas Ricker, an Engadget senior editor, who had run its European coverage; Sean Hollister, a senior associate editor, who ran its West coast team; and Joseph Flatley, an associate editor.

Also hired: Thomas Houston, editor-in-chief of Switched, an AOL tech site that was recently subsumed into its Huffington Post Media unit; and Dieter Bohn, who was editor-in-chief for the Smartphone Experts network of sites, including Crackberry and others.

And other possible new hires soon from Engadget: Another European editor, Vlad Savov, and writer Jacob Schulman.

The Topolsky-helmed site is still unnamed but is now operating as This Is My Next. It already has 16 writers, compared to Engadget’s two dozen, and is set to debut in the fall with a new name.

It will be the first content expansion at the Washington, D.C., SB Nation, which completed a $10.5 million Series C round, led by Khosla Ventures, in the fall.

Before that, SB Nation had already raised about $13 million in total venture funding from Accel Partners, Allen & Company and Comcast Interactive Capital, as well as from angel investors such as Ted Leonsis and others in Silicon Valley.

Another AOL link: SB Nation was founded by former AOLer, CEO Jim Bankoff, who had bought Engadget for AOL many years ago.

Engadget Editorial Director Josh Frulinger said that the impact of the talent drain on Engadget — mostly from This Is My Next raids — has been small, since the site has also been aggressively hiring.

“We’re past the people leaving and into celebrating what we’ve accomplished in six short months, and we welcome any new competition,” he said. “Dana Wollman, Brian Heater, Myriam Joire, Zach Honig, Joe Pollicino, Richard Lawler, Michael Gorman, Sean Buckley, Joseph Volpe, Brad Molen, Terrence O’Brien, Amar Toor and Sharif Skar — all brought on in the past six months — are your Engadget stars of tomorrow.”

To prove it, AOL said unique visitors for Engadget in June were up 1.1 percent from May and will be up again for July. In recent reports, the site had 14 million unique monthly visitors.

Former AOL Media Exec Marty Moe to Join Engadget Gang of Eight at SB Nation

Kara Swisher — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 15:49:49 +0000

Just what is SB Nation’s Jim Bankoff up to?

Earlier this week, he hired away eight staffers from AOL’s Engadget in order to create a competing tech news and gadget reviews site.

And now, according to sources close to the situation, the former AOL content head is close to hiring another former top AOL media exec, Marty Moe (pictured here), to manage it and also more niche sites the blog network is contemplating launching.

Sources said the hiring of Moe is not yet complete, but is close to being struck.

Tyler Bleszinski, SB Nation’s founder and sports editorial director, will continue to manage the start-up’s sports blog network, while Moe will focus on the company’s tech vertical and any other future categories.

Moe left AOL less than a year ago, after nine years working at the New York-based portal, including with Bankoff.

Both had been involved in the purchase of Weblogs Inc., which included the flagship Engadget site.

Now, it seems they will be trying to remake the concept of a content network, although in a more entrepreneurial and innovative setting.

The new tech site–which is still unnamed and will be helmed editorially by outgoing Engadget Editor in Chief Josh Topolsky–will debut some time in the fall. It is the first content expansion at the Washington, D.C., SB Nation, which has heretofore been exclusively focused on sports.

Topolsky will be joined by former Engadget managing editor Nilay Patel and also former staffers Paul Miller, Joanna Stern, Ross Miller, Chris Ziegler, Justin Glow and Dan Chilton.

All of the above had left Engadget in a series of departures of late, all due to increasing unhappiness with AOL’s management and content strategy.

Paul Miller and Ross Miller, who are not related, both stated publicly that they did not like the editorial direction AOL was going in, especially a controversial content strategy document titled “The AOL Way.”

New AOL content head Arianna Huffington has shifted toward a more journalistic path, but the talent bleed began before AOL’s $315 million purchase of the Huffington Post.

Many new upstart content sites such as SB Nation have begun to try to eat away at the big portal’s content strategy–pushed by its CEO Tim Armstrong–with perhaps more nimble efforts of their own.

And those smaller companies are also well funded.

SB Nation completed a $10.5 million Series C venture round, led by Khosla Ventures, in the fall.

It had already raised about $13 million in total funding from Accel Partners, Allen & Company and Comcast Interactive Capital, as well as from angel investors such as Ted Leonsis and others in Silicon Valley.

AOL Confirms Tim Stevens as New Engadget Editor in Chief

Kara Swisher — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 14:08:37 +0000

As BoomTown reported earlier, AOL has confirmed that Tim Stevens (pictured here in a classic Speed Racer pose, but see his real face below) will replace Josh Topolsky as editor in chief of Engadget.

Stevens has been working at the large tech gadget news and reviews site since 2007, most recently as its automotive editor.

Unusually, he was a part-timer at Engadget until a few months ago and lives several hours north of New York City, where AOL has its HQ. The company said Stevens will commute as necessary.

In his bio on the Engadget site, Stevens noted, in part, that he’s “an avid gamer, amateur motorsports enthusiast, lover of most outdoor activities, and proud creator of the first (and possibly only) two-player game for the Sega VMU.”

Geek credentials–check!

The appointment comes amid a fair bit of hubbub, with the announcement last night of a new competing tech site with eight new staff members, all of whom have recently left Engadget.

An Apple-obsessed, gadget-loving, nerdy-McNerd Gang of Eight!

That includes Topolsky, who is joining Jim Bankoff at his well-funded SB Nation sports and news start-up to launch the still-unnamed site.

Bankoff–in even more only-in-tech interconnectedness–was key to the purchase of Engadget many years ago when he was AOL’s top content exec.

An AOL spokesperson said in an email that “Engadget stays the same, with an obsessive focus on news.”

He correctly pointed out that “there’s a long tradition of handing down the editor in chief baton to someone from within: Pete Rojas to Ryan Block to Josh Topolsky to Tim Stevens.”

The site’s editorial director since 2009 has been Josh Fruhlinger. Recently promoted managing editor, Darren Murph, will also remain in the job at AOL.

In a statement to me, Fruhlinger said:

“As a member of Engadget since 2004, I know that we built our success on a commitment to what matters most to readers: staying focused on the latest technology news. Tim has a reputation for sharp news coverage and is a natural leader–our staffers are deeply loyal to him and stand behind him as we move on to the next generation of Engadget. Darren has an intuitive sense for discerning news and trends that matter. And we’re thrilled to be working with Arianna Huffington as part of The Huffington Post Media Group, as Arianna has a history of die-hard support for the work of journalists.”

Earlier Fruhlinger also tweeted: “In case anyone wondered, Engadget will be hitting tech news when we all wake up. Just like today. Just like 2004.”

Thus, everyone back to work as before!

Until more Engadget news is committed, here’s Stevens–who thinks he looks more like Racer X in the photo above–with an actual face on display (“I AM THE STIG” is yet another car-racing reference):

SB Nation Sacks AOL in Raid of Former Engadget Team for Competing New Tech Site, As AOL Zeroes in on New EiC

Kara Swisher — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 02:34:40 +0000

Jim Bankoff, the fomer AOL exec responsible for buying Engadget for the Internet portal, has grabbed eight staffers who had recently left the huge tech site amid tensions, in order to start a new gadget property.

The site–which is still unnamed and will be run by outgoing Engadget Editor-in-Chief Josh Topolsky–will debut sometime in the fall. It is the first content expansion at the Washington, D.C. sports news site SB Nation, which is helmed by Bankoff.

“The technology we built is applicable beyond sports,” said Bankoff, in an interview with BoomTown tonight. “It was an opportunity to apply our model…into another content category where there was an overlap in demographics.”

That would be fanboys and, well, boys-who-will-be-boys.

UPDATE: In related news, sources said that AOL has zeroed in on Tim Stevens, Engadget’s automotive editor to replace the outgoing Topolsky. The New York-based company had already named Darren Murph as its new managing editor.

Now Stevens will be competing with Topolsky, as well as managing editor Nilay Patel, who will also lead the Engadget tech-exodus (techxodus?). The others include former Engadget staffers Paul Miller, Joanna Stern, Ross Miller, Chris Ziegler, Justin Glow and Dan Chilton.

Stern and Ziegler are still on Engadget’s editors site as current employees.

All of the above had left Engadget in a series of departures of late, all due to increasing unhappiness with AOL’s management and content strategy.

In his blog post, Topolsky threw another smackadoo at AOL, noting “SB Nation believes in real, independent journalism and the potential for new media to serve as an answer and antidote to big publishing houses and SEO spam–a point we couldn’t be more aligned on.”

New AOL content head Arianna Huffington has shifted toward a more journalistic path, but the talent bleed began before AOL’s $315 million purchase of the Huffington Post.

In a blog post, which is embedded below, Topolsky said the new SB Nation gadget site will be similar in pace and topic, but it will be broader than Engadget.

The move is an interesting one for SB Nation, which completed a $10.5 million Series C round, led by Khosla Ventures, in the fall.

It had already raised about $13 million in total venture funding from Accel Partners, Allen & Company and Comcast Interactive Capital, as well as from angel investors such as Ted Leonsis and others in Silicon Valley.

In related news, also restarting tomorrow will be a popular gadget podcast that Topolsky, Patel and Paul Miller had done for Engadget.

The New York Times’ David Carr mentioned the new site in the middle of a column earlier tonight.

Here is Topolsky’s blog post on the move, titled “This Is My Next Project”:

As you may have already heard (or read), there’s some activity going on in the world of Joshua Topolsky. Earlier this evening, David Carr published a piece in the New York Times about a new project that I’m embarking on…and I want to just say a few things about it.

Firstly: yes, this is happening. I’ve decided to join the team at SB Nation to build something brand new in the tech space. Now I know it might seem odd to some that I would be partnering with a sports publisher to build a technology news site, but that’s only half the story. This isn’t just about sports, or tech, or lone silos. What we will build together at SB Nation is a new media company–buoyed by the absolutely incredible work SB Nation has already done in publishing–and part of that new media company will be the as-yet-unnamed gadget and technology site that I’ll be working over the next few months to create. When we launch (hopefully in the fall), I will be editor-in-chief of a property that I hope will inform, entertain, and engage fans of technology in whole new ways.

I should say that I wouldn’t want to build something like this alone, and thankfully, I won’t have to. I’ll be joined by some very good friends at this new venture–people like Nilay Patel, for instance.

Of course, the natural question I’m sure a lot of people have is: why SB Nation? The easy answer is that the people at SB Nation share my vision of what publishing looks like in the year 2011. They think that the technology used to create and distribute news on the web (and mobile) is as important as the people who are responsible for the content itself. And that’s not just pillow talk–SB Nation is actively evolving its tools and processes to meet the growing and changing needs of its vast editorial teams and their audience communities. They’re building for the web as it is now. From the perspective of a journalist who also happens to be a huge nerd, that’s a match made in heaven. SBN isn’t just another media company pushing news out–it’s a testbed and lab for some of the newest and most interesting publishing tools I’ve ever seen. In short, I was blown away when I saw what kind of technology they’re using to get news on their front page and engage audiences, and even more blown away when I started talking to them about what could come next.

But beyond the technology (and possibly more important than the technology), there’s another factor here that’s driving my decision. It’s that SB Nation believes in real, independent journalism and the potential for new media to serve as an answer and antidote to big publishing houses and SEO spam–a point we couldn’t be more aligned on. This is a group of people that not only think independent media works, but are reaping the rewards of new publishing done right. As the fastest growing online sports publisher, they’re seen as a source for credible and honest journalism, which is why industry stalwarts like Rob Neyer have recently joined their ranks (ranks which include hundreds of talented sports experts). This isn’t tabloid page grabbing or content farming–it’s news and insight by and for a passionate and informed group of people. And that’s exactly where I want to be.

So, what happens next? We get to work.

In the coming months I’m going to be laser focused on one thing: building the best tech site in the world–and I would love to hear what you guys think the next phase in technology and gadget news should look like. Ping me with ideas, gripes, or even better–come and work here! SB Nation is looking for new developers as we speak, and as we ramp up to launch, we’ll be bringing on lots of talent to work both on the front page and behind the scenes.

I couldn’t be more excited and enthusiastic about what we can build right now, and I can’t wait to share what we’re going to make with the rest of the world. The months ahead are going to be filled with lots of early mornings and sleepless nights, intense debates, triumphs, and trials–and I can’t wait.

No New Splashy Engadget Editor Yet, But AOL Site Cleaning Begins

Kara Swisher — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 08:09:59 +0000

AOL will begin rolling out its plans to overhaul its panoply of content sites as early as today, a key part of its integration with the Huffington Post, sources familiar with the situation said.

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong will be sending out an internal memo on the topic soon, said sources with knowledge of the moves.

He will outline how the New York-based Internet portal, which paid $315 million to acquire the high-profile news and opinion site, will essentially close down dozens of its dedicated content sites–some being shuttered completely and others integrated with existing Huffington Post sites.

One example of the first is Politics Daily, as has been previously reported; it will no longer exist as a brand. Its staff is being integrated into the Huffington Post’s more robust political offerings.

It goes both ways, though–the Huffington Post’s travel site will be closed in favor of AOL’s stronger offering in that arena.

And still other well-known AOL brands, such as its PopEater celebrity site and its StyleList fashion and beauty site, will keep their names but no longer exist as separate destination sites. PopEater will be integrated into HuffPo’s entertainment and StyleList to its similar site.

[UPDATE: StyleList's status was shifted just this morning--it will remain a standalone brand and AOL's Shelterpop will become StyleList at Home, integrating into StyleList. Plus it will all now be called Stylist--losing the "e" and capped "L."]

The changes are causing some tension within AOL, given it is a drastic shift from relatively recent efforts to expand its portfolio of editorial sites.

In fact, some insiders are calling the recent vetting of which content sites to close and which to keep as “death panels,” a somewhat dicey reference to controversies over the Obama administration’s healthcare plan.

Also on deck for tomorrow will be letters sent out to freelancers about new plans to hire some–though not all–of them. According to several sources, AOL content head Arianna Huffington outlined the plan to editors recently, stressing the need to focus on staff-generated and more journalistically focused content.

One thing that is not happening is the appointment of a new editor-in-chief for AOL’s flagship tech news site, Engadget.

BoomTown reported on the recent departure of Engadget’s top two editors, Editor-in-Chief Josh Topolsky and Managing Editor Nilay Patel.

The news rocketed around the small echo chamber that is the tech blogosphere, which is no surprise since Engadget is one of the largest sites on the Web covering the tech sector.

In the interim, staffer Darren Murph has been appointed managing editor of Engadget. He reports to Joshua Fruhlinger, editorial director for Engadget, Switched and AOL Tech. Brad Hill is the business director for the properties.

Engadget is one of the largest in tech, with 14 million unique visitors a month. Its main competitor is Gawker’s Gizmodo. AOL also owns TechCrunch, another tech news site.

An email to AOL for comment has not yet been returned.

Exclusive: Engadget's Top Editors Topolsky and Patel Exit From AOL's Giant Tech Site

Kara Swisher — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 23:03:05 +0000

Josh Topolsky, the editor-in-chief of Engadget, is leaving the AOL-owned property, one of the largest tech news sites on the Web.

Also departing is Managing Editor Nilay Patel, said sources. [UPDATE: Patel delivers the goodbye news himself in a blog post here.]

Sources said the move by Topolsky (pictured here, although the coffee cup is not permanent) and Patel is not out of the tech news arena and both are considering several options.

[UPDATE: Topolsky just confirmed the move in a blog post on Engadget, which is below, writing, in part: "I'm not leaving the industry or the news game--in fact, I've got a few fantasy projects in mind that hopefully you'll be hearing about soon."]

Sources said the departures have been a long time in coming, related to a range of ongoing issues the veteran editors have had working for the large New York-based Internet company. Sources said it was not precipitated by AOL’s recent $315 million acquisition of the Huffington Post.

In fact, AOL’s new content head Arianna Huffington had tried hard to persuade Topolsky to stay on, but that “he had already mentally made up his mind to go.”

This has been a regular occurrence at the site, including two top Engadget editors–Paul Miller and Ross Miller, who are not related–who departed the tech site in recent months. Both stated publicly that they did not like the editorial direction AOL was going in, especially a controversial content strategy document titled “The AOL Way.”

In a post in mid-February, Paul Miller was explicit about the issue on his personal blog:

I’d love to be able to keep doing this forever, but unfortunately Engadget is owned by AOL, and AOL has proved an unwilling partner in this site’s evolution. It doesn’t take a veteran of the publishing world to realize that AOL has its heart in the wrong place with content. As detailed in the “AOL Way,” and borne out in personal experience, AOL sees content as a commodity it can sell ads against. That might make good business sense (though I doubt it), but it doesn’t promote good journalism or even good entertainment, and it doesn’t allow an ambitious team like the one I know and love at Engadget to thrive.

In this case, “The AOL Way” was not the main reason for the departure of Topolsky or Patel (pictured here, looking rather fetching), sources said, but was more about the challenges of working within a large corporate entity.

Engadget is one of the largest in tech, with 14 million unique visitors a month. Its main competitor is Gawker’s Gizmodo. AOL also owns TechCrunch, another tech news site.

BoomTown sent an email to AOL execs for comment and am awaiting a reply.

UPDATE: Topolsky just posted a goodbye on the Engadget titled, “Hello, I Must Be Going”:

It’s hard to believe that I’m currently writing the words I seem to be writing, though a casual stock-taking of my senses dictates that it must be true. Here I am, at my computer, typing letters one by one into a plain text document, rolling along through one of the strangest posts I’ve ever penned for this site. Okay, probably the strangest ever.

After nearly four years at Engadget, it’s time to make my exit. There are things I’m after and challenges I want to take on that just don’t fit with my day-to-day schedule here, so off I go.

I didn’t make this decision lightly. The time I’ve spent here has been–without question–the most amazing, rewarding, and just insanely fun period of my life. And I like to think I’ve had some pretty good times. The Engadget staff is easily the greatest collection of human beings I’ve ever encountered, and they’ve made waking up and freaking out over tech news for 12 to 18 hours a day into basically a party. I’ve never worked so hard or had so much fun doing it. I don’t use religious terms very often, but if there’s such a thing as being blessed, I would say the opportunity I had to work with these people certainly made me feel that way.

And it’s not just the core team at Engadget; all the groups at Weblogs (and its director Brad Hill), have been tremendous friends, partners, and peers.

Then there’s you guys — the readers. The hive mind. The Engadget fan-boys and -girls. It’s hard to sum up my experiences with the readership of Engadget in one paragraph. It would probably be hard in a hundred. But I can say that you’re simply the most informed, passionate, and excited group of people anywhere on the planet. Sure, you can get a little crazy sometimes–but what an astounding group of super-geniuses you are as well. Writing and working for the throngs of people who visit this site every day has been a huge challenge, a learning experience, and just kind of awe-inspiring.

But as I said, it’s time for me to step away. I’m not leaving the industry or the news game–in fact, I’ve got a few fantasy projects in mind that hopefully you’ll be hearing about soon.

Don’t worry though, Engadget is going to keep doing what it does best: being awesome. We have an amazing staff of senior editors and writers that will keep the machine chugging along (and growing!) for years to come. My friend and our editorial director Josh Fruhlinger will be taking on a bigger role in our day-to-day during the transition, and I won’t be completely disappearing from the site–I’ll stay on as editor-at-large, to advise and direct when necessary. I’ll also be sticking around to host more episodes of the Engadget Show, so you can continue to get your fix (if you’re into nerdy video shows about gadgets and technology, that is).

And with that, I’m shuffling over towards the door, just underneath that dim exit sign that keeps blinking on and off, its fluorescent bulbs cracking with some syncopated rhythm all their own. It’s just started to rain a little bit outside, but I’ve got my coat and umbrella. I’ll be fine, and so will you.

Till we meet again…

Amazon Starts Up Its Web Video Service. Not a Netflix-Killer, But a Start

Peter Kafka — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 14:18:30 +0000

Here’s Amazon’s cautious toe-touch into Web video subscriptions: A smattering of movies it’s offering for free to anyone who is using its $79 a year “Prime” delivery service.

This appears to be exactly the same program that an Engadget tipster sniffed out last month. And, as previously noted, it’s not going to get anyone to stop subscribing to Netflix, or abandon any other online or offline video service they’re already using: Amazon is starting off with a selection of 5,000 movies and TV shows, and almost none of them are mainstream favorites.

Instead, the retailer’s selection is heavy on documentaries, indies, etc. Definitely check out “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” if you’ve never seen it, and “Man on Wire” is my favorite documentary in years. Oooh. And there’s a Louis C.K. stand-up special, too. Amazon PR says the company will offer 1,600 movies, and 4,000 tv show episodes, to start.

In essence, Amazon is more or less doing what Netflix did when it started out on the Web, too: Grabbing the streaming rights to whatever it could buy/afford, and throwing it in as a freebie (note that “Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Man on Wire”–but not the Louis C.K. stuff–are available via Netflix Instant, too).

But now check out Netflix, which has a catalog of some 20,000 titles, and is selling an all-digital service for $8 month–one that is apparently attracting a third of its new customers.

Amazon certainly has the dollars and clout to compete with Netflix – and Apple, and Microsoft, and Hulu, and whoever else wants to bid on these rights, which generally aren’t exclusive, anyway. So if it wants to push aggressively into Web video, it can.

But for now, consider this a starting point, and not much more.

QOTD: Better the Highway Than the "AOL Way"

Voices — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 00:21:23 +0000

“I’d love to be able to keep doing this forever, but unfortunately Engadget is owned by AOL, and AOL has proved an unwilling partner in this site’s evolution. It doesn’t take a veteran of the publishing world to realize that AOL has its heart in the wrong place with content. As detailed in the ‘AOL Way,’ and borne out in personal experience, AOL sees content as a commodity it can sell ads against. That might make good business sense (though I doubt it), but it doesn’t promote good journalism or even good entertainment, and it doesn’t allow an ambitious team like the one I know and love at Engadget to thrive.”

– Ex-Engadget Editor Paul J. Miller, leaving after a stint of more than five years

Arianna Huffington Cleans Up

Nitrozac and Snaggy — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 23:01:26 +0000

Here is the latest comic from our Joy of Tech friends at Geek Culture, Nitrozac and Snaggy. Joy of Tech appears three times a week in the Voices section of this site. (Click on the image to see a bigger version.)

Nokia's Stephen Elop Didn't Start the Fire–But His "Burning Platform" Certainly Lights One

Kara Swisher — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 14:15:21 +0000

Memo to tech CEOs everywhere: Now that’s how to write an internal memo.

That would be the 1,300-word one that Nokia CEO Stephen Elop (pictured here) apparently penned for employees at the Finnish telecom giant, which inevitably leaked to the media (in this case, kudos to Engadget for getting the whole thing, which is below).

Elop uses the harsh but cogent metaphor of a burning oil platform to take a bracing opening shot at turning around Nokia, which has lost market share–and, more importantly, mindshare–to both Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android mobile operating system.

This is not breaking news to anyone in the wider tech world, of course. But for the CEO to say it so flatly and brutally to the insular troops at Nokia makes it remarkable.

As you can read, it’s dramatic all right, and just the kind of thing a lot of leaders at troubled companies–Hello, Yahoo!–could learn a thing or two from.

That’s because it’s honest and also genuine, and with enough of a direction and glimpses into pending action–to be revealed later this week at an event to unveil a new strategy–that it’s not just a diatribe by a new manager about how bad the previous managers were.

There is clearly plenty of that, of course, which is no surprise. But with rumors of an imminent significant management overhaul–which few execs ever do enough of at the start of their tenure, when it is easiest–there seems to be teeth to the memo too.

And although the burning platform part will get all the attention, perhaps the most important observation was in one particular passage that outlines exactly the giant challenge Nokia faces to catch up:

The battle of devices has now become a war of ecosystems, where ecosystems include not only the hardware and software of the device, but developers, applications, ecommerce, advertising, search, social applications, location-based services, unified communications and many other things. Our competitors aren’t taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem. This means we’re going to have to decide how we either build, catalyse or join an ecosystem.

Because, as it has turned out, it is all about ecosystems and using them to provide consumers with the best and most seamless experience possible.

Walt Mossberg and I will be interviewing Elop–the former Microsoft exec, who is neither a Nokia insider nor Finnish–about all this and more at the ninth D: All Thing Digital conference in late May.

Obviously, there will be a lot to talk about.

But, until then, here’s Elop’s memo below in its entirety.

I also reposted a video interview I did with Elop in April of 2009 in which he talked about making Microsoft a more open and innovative place, the changing business model of software and more.

Also below is a video Elop ordered up while running Microsoft’s Business Division as part of an “Envisioning” series.

These see-into-the-future videos were done by Microsoft Office Labs as part of a “Productivity Future Vision” series that sketched out a landscape of smartphones, touchscreens everywhere and a whole lot of cool interacting.

It would be nice if he can drag Nokia back into that world–although Elop’s memo is a good start.

[ See post to watch video ]

Hello there,

There is a pertinent story about a man who was working on an oil platform in the North Sea. He woke up one night from a loud explosion, which suddenly set his entire oil platform on fire. In mere moments, he was surrounded by flames. Through the smoke and heat, he barely made his way out of the chaos to the platform’s edge. When he looked down over the edge, all he could see were the dark, cold, foreboding Atlantic waters.

As the fire approached him, the man had mere seconds to react. He could stand on the platform, and inevitably be consumed by the burning flames. Or, he could plunge 30 meters in to the freezing waters. The man was standing upon a “burning platform,” and he needed to make a choice.

He decided to jump. It was unexpected. In ordinary circumstances, the man would never consider plunging into icy waters. But these were not ordinary times–his platform was on fire. The man survived the fall and the waters. After he was rescued, he noted that a “burning platform” caused a radical change in his behaviour.

We too, are standing on a “burning platform,” and we must decide how we are going to change our behaviour.

Over the past few months, I’ve shared with you what I’ve heard from our shareholders, operators, developers, suppliers and from you. Today, I’m going to share what I’ve learned and what I have come to believe.

I have learned that we are standing on a burning platform.

And, we have more than one explosion–we have multiple points of scorching heat that are fuelling a blazing fire around us.

For example, there is intense heat coming from our competitors, more rapidly than we ever expected. Apple disrupted the market by redefining the smartphone and attracting developers to a closed, but very powerful ecosystem.

In 2008, Apple’s market share in the $300+ price range was 25 percent; by 2010 it escalated to 61 percent. They are enjoying a tremendous growth trajectory with a 78 percent earnings growth year over year in Q4 2010. Apple demonstrated that if designed well, consumers would buy a high-priced phone with a great experience and developers would build applications. They changed the game, and today, Apple owns the high-end range.

And then, there is Android. In about two years, Android created a platform that attracts application developers, service providers and hardware manufacturers. Android came in at the high-end, they are now winning the mid-range, and quickly they are going downstream to phones under €100. Google has become a gravitational force, drawing much of the industry’s innovation to its core.

Let’s not forget about the low-end price range. In 2008, MediaTek supplied complete reference designs for phone chipsets, which enabled manufacturers in the Shenzhen region of China to produce phones at an unbelievable pace. By some accounts, this ecosystem now produces more than one third of the phones sold globally–taking share from us in emerging markets.

While competitors poured flames on our market share, what happened at Nokia? We fell behind, we missed big trends, and we lost time. At that time, we thought we were making the right decisions; but, with the benefit of hindsight, we now find ourselves years behind.

The first iPhone shipped in 2007, and we still don’t have a product that is close to their experience. Android came on the scene just over 2 years ago, and this week they took our leadership position in smartphone volumes. Unbelievable.

We have some brilliant sources of innovation inside Nokia, but we are not bringing it to market fast enough. We thought MeeGo would be a platform for winning high-end smartphones. However, at this rate, by the end of 2011, we might have only one MeeGo product in the market.

At the midrange, we have Symbian. It has proven to be non-competitive in leading markets like North America. Additionally, Symbian is proving to be an increasingly difficult environment in which to develop to meet the continuously expanding consumer requirements, leading to slowness in product development and also creating a disadvantage when we seek to take advantage of new hardware platforms. As a result, if we continue like before, we will get further and further behind, while our competitors advance further and further ahead.

At the lower-end price range, Chinese OEMs are cranking out a device much faster than, as one Nokia employee said only partially in jest, “the time that it takes us to polish a PowerPoint presentation.” They are fast, they are cheap, and they are challenging us.

And the truly perplexing aspect is that we’re not even fighting with the right weapons. We are still too often trying to approach each price range on a device-to-device basis.

The battle of devices has now become a war of ecosystems, where ecosystems include not only the hardware and software of the device, but developers, applications, ecommerce, advertising, search, social applications, location-based services, unified communications and many other things. Our competitors aren’t taking our market share with devices; they are taking our market share with an entire ecosystem. This means we’re going to have to decide how we either build, catalyse or join an ecosystem.

This is one of the decisions we need to make. In the meantime, we’ve lost market share, we’ve lost mind share and we’ve lost time.

On Tuesday, Standard & Poor’s informed that they will put our A long term and A-1 short term ratings on negative credit watch. This is a similar rating action to the one that Moody’s took last week. Basically it means that during the next few weeks they will make an analysis of Nokia, and decide on a possible credit rating downgrade. Why are these credit agencies contemplating these changes? Because they are concerned about our competitiveness.

Consumer preference for Nokia declined worldwide. In the UK, our brand preference has slipped to 20 percent, which is 8 percent lower than last year. That means only 1 out of 5 people in the UK prefer Nokia to other brands. It’s also down in the other markets, which are traditionally our strongholds: Russia, Germany, Indonesia, UAE, and on and on and on.

How did we get to this point? Why did we fall behind when the world around us evolved?

This is what I have been trying to understand. I believe at least some of it has been due to our attitude inside Nokia. We poured gasoline on our own burning platform. I believe we have lacked accountability and leadership to align and direct the company through these disruptive times. We had a series of misses. We haven’t been delivering innovation fast enough. We’re not collaborating internally.

Nokia, our platform is burning.

We are working on a path forward–a path to rebuild our market leadership. When we share the new strategy on February 11, it will be a huge effort to transform our company. But, I believe that together, we can face the challenges ahead of us. Together, we can choose to define our future.

The burning platform, upon which the man found himself, caused the man to shift his behaviour, and take a bold and brave step into an uncertain future. He was able to tell his story. Now, we have a great opportunity to do the same.

Stephen.

You've Got Arianna: AOL Buys Huffington Post for $315 Million in Cash and Stock, Appoints Huffington Editor in Chief

Kara Swisher — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 05:01:47 +0000

In a bold and definitive move, AOL is paying $315 million, mostly in cash, to buy the Huffington Post, one of the Web’s most prominent news and opinion sites.

As part of the deal, Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington (pictured here)–who was derided by some when she co-founded the left-leaning site in 2005 with investor and well-known communications exec Kenneth Lerer–will become president and editor in chief of the Huffington Post Media Group within AOL.

The deal was signed late this afternoon, and the board of directors of each company and shareholders of the privately held Huffington Post have approved the transaction.

In an exclusive video interview BoomTown conducted earlier today in Dallas, just before Super Bowl XLV, both Armstrong and Huffington were jovial that the whirlwind deal, begun in November, actually worked out so quickly.

Perhaps giddy, they hit upon a common motto:

“One plus one equals 11.”

Get it? One and one next to each other is the number 11!

Let’s move on, shall we?

AOL said it is expected to close in the late-first or early-second quarter of 2011.

Once culminated, it will put Huffington in charge of all AOL content and other properties, including well-known names such as Engadget, Moviefone, MapQuest and TechCrunch.

She said she plans to move to New York from Los Angeles, although she will also maintain her longtime Brentwood home there.

And content for all these sites will be integrated deeply into the Huffington Post, giving it a huge new infusion of editorial material.

More to the point, the flashy acquisition–which essentially came together in less than two weeks in January–will become the linchpin of AOL CEO Tim Armstrong’s aggressive, if risky, strategy to focus the long-troubled company as a content and advertising powerhouse.

For AOL, the deal gives it a popular branded site that is very good at generating lots of page views and impressions very efficiently–which is the company’s whole thrust these days.

That means lots more ad inventory to sell and an injection of content talent, giving AOL the scale it desperately needs.

The move also obviously gives AOL a much-needed editorial identity and cohesion, which it doesn’t really have.

In fact, many think AOL needs a rallying point to bring clarity to its hodgepodge of recent acquisitions that all center on the notion that a strong company has yet to emerge in the premium content space.

Here is a mock-up of the front page of AOL tonight (click on it to make it larger):

While it all makes for a riveting narrative by the charming Armstrong, AOL still has not delivered the business turnaround promised after its spinoff from Time Warner in 2009.

Wall Street, which has given Armstrong a lot of rope, has become more impatient of late to see results–especially more robust increases in its display advertising business, as its access business dies off–after AOL spun off from Time Warner in 2009.

In its quarterly report last week, AOL reported earnings of 61 cents a share on revenue of $596 million.

But, as MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka wrote:

The bigger picture is that Armstrong’s turnaround is still in progress. Ad revenue was down 29 percent in the last quarter, although that number is worse than it looks. A big chunk of the decline comes from moves AOL has intentionally made that will cut revenue in the short run in return for more profitable sales down the road.

A more representative data set for Armstrong are his display ad sales, which are down 14 percent overall and eight percent in the U.S..

The bad news is that the rest of the Web ad industry is well into rebound mode; the good news is that AOL has trained Wall Street to expect numbers like these. If you’re waiting to see positive sales numbers, Armstrong said during AOL’s earnings call this morning, wait until the second half of this year.

In any case, the move is a good one for the Huffington Post since it will vault it to the next level of growth.

Other companies, such as Yahoo and NBC Universal, had looked at the company as a purchase target, and many expected it to eventually sell out to a larger company.

Sources close to the Huffington Post said that that outcome seemed the most likely, and the recent expansion of the site and its audience made it a good time to do a deal now.

Talks with Yahoo last year went nowhere, sources said, but Armstrong was not as slow to act.

Indeed, the actual deal happened quickly, said Armstrong and Huffington in a video interview with BoomTown earlier today (which you can see here).

The pair started talking in early November of last year at the Quadrangle Conference in New York and continued their discussions through the holidays.

Armstrong made the official offer to Huffington by phone in January, while she was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and he was snowed in in New York.

Five time multiple to the Huffington Post’s upward of $60 million in expected revenue for the coming year, and nearly 10 times the $31 million for 2010, the offer was accepted quickly.

AOL used cash for $300 million of the purchase and $15 million in stock for the rest.

“The idea of turning a fire hose of traffic onto our content made enormous sense,” said one person close to the situation. “Everything is changing so fast, it seemed like the time was right.”

An IPO was also considered for the Huffington Post, sources said. But since the site only recently moved into profitability–although barely–such an event would have been farther out.

That’s despite the fact that the Huffington Post has seen fast-growing traffic and influence, spurred in part by Huffington’s larger-than-life persona in both the mainstream media and blogosphere.

The wide-ranging site–which has added a number of content areas in recent years beyond its flagship political offering–currently has almost 26 million unique monthly visitors, according to recent stats, moving in close range to established news organizations such as the New York Times.

That kind of success seemed unlikely when the Huffington Post launched on May 9, 2005, positioning itself as as a liberal counterweight to the popular right-leaning Drudge Report.

But the Huffington Post’s heady mix of celebrity bloggers, personality and voice, as well as aggressive curation of links from other sites, quickly caught on.

To fund its efforts, the New York-based online media company has raised $37 million from angel investors such as Lerer–the largest individual shareholder, followed closely by Huffington–and venture firms such as Greycroft Partners, Softbank Capital and Oak Investment Partners.

The growth has not been without controversy around issues such as lack of payments to bloggers who contribute and accusations that the site uses too much content from other Web sources when linking.

And Huffington herself has also been a lightning rod, which has been both positive and negative for the site.

But, there is no question she is one of the Web’s most prominent players, along with writing books, appearing on television frequently and being a fixture at high-profile events in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

That includes a never-ending panoply of parties that feature a potent mix of movie stars, corporate poo-bahs, glad-handing politicians and lots of journalists from all over the media.

In fact, full disclosure, I was at one of those parties this past weekend for actor Colin Firth and others involved in the making of the Oscar-nominated film “The King’s Speech.” (Apropos of nothing, actor Helena Bonham Carter is as smart as you would expect, but much more delicate.)

As part of the AOL deal, CEO Eric Hippeau–who has been integral to professionalizing the business and will be joining Lerer Ventures–and Chief Revenue Officer Greg Coleman will leave the Huffington Post.

Ironically, Coleman was replaced by Armstrong as head of ad sales at AOL after he took over as CEO. Coleman got a big payout and will now apparently get another.

But the rest of the 200 Huffington Post employees are moving over to AOL with Huffington, who Armstrong hopes will be the company’s ace in the content hole going forward.

There are likely to be changes to come too at AOL, within weeks, especially in its content-side management and site staffs.

AOL provided some quotes in support of the deal from prominent Internet figures who know Huffington well.

“Arianna is one of the preeminent authors and editors of our time, and Tim has a remarkable track record of business success,” said Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. “Bringing them together creates tremendous potential for AOL.”

And Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said:

“Editorial vision and leadership are essential in order to transmute our shared cacophony of voices into a valuable dialogue. Arianna’s expertise, empathy, and entrepreneurial enthusiasm forms a kind of alchemy turning mere words and phrases into powerful expressions of humanity.”

Inter-Internet harmony: How sweet!

Here is the official press release, with all the details, but there is also an 8 am ET AOL conference call tomorrow:

AOL AGREES TO ACQUIRE THE HUFFINGTON POST

Acquisition Will Solidify AOL’s Strategy of Creating a Premier Content Network With Local, National and International Reach

Arianna Huffington To Lead Newly Formed The Huffington Post Media Group Which Will Integrate All Huffington Post and AOL Content, Including News, Tech, Women, Local, Multicultural, Entertainment, Video, Community, and More

The New Combined Media Group Will Reach 117 Million Americans and 270 Million Globally

Group Uniquely Positioned To Redefine the Future of Brand Advertising and Marketing For an Engaged and Influential Audience

New York, NY–February 7, 2011–AOL Inc. [NYSE:AOL] announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire The Huffington Post, the influential and rapidly growing news, analysis, and lifestyle website founded in 2005, which now counts nearly 25 million unique monthly visitors*.

The transaction will create a premier global, national, local, and hyper-local content group for the digital age–leveraged across online, mobile, tablet, and video platforms. The combination of AOL’s infrastructure and scale with The Huffington Post’s pioneering approach to news and innovative community building among a broad and sophisticated audience will mark a seminal moment in the evolution of digital journalism and online engagement.

The new group will have a combined base of 117 million unique visitors a month in the United States and 270 million around the world**. Following the close of this transaction, AOL will accelerate its strategy to deliver a scaled and differentiated array of premium news, analysis, and entertainment produced by thousands of writers, editors, reporters, and videographers around the globe.

As part of the transaction, Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post’s co-founder and editor-in-chief, will be named president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, which will include all Huffington Post and AOL content, including Engadget, TechCrunch, Moviefone, MapQuest, Black Voices, PopEater, AOL Music, AOL Latino, AutoBlog, Patch, StyleList, and more.

“The acquisition of The Huffington Post will create a next-generation American media company with global reach that combines content, community, and social experiences for consumers,” said Tim Armstrong, Chairman and CEO of AOL. “Together, our companies will embrace the digital future and become a digital destination that delivers unmatched experiences for both consumers and advertisers.”

Armstrong continued, “Arianna is a singularly passionate and dedicated champion of innovative journalistic engagement, and a master of the art of using new media to illuminate, entertain and enhance the national conversation. Arianna is a remarkable person and she will continue to create remarkable outcomes for the combined company.”

“This is truly a merger of visions and a perfect fit for us,” said Huffington. “The Huffington Post will continue on the same path we have been on for the last six years–though now at light speed–by combining with AOL. Our readers will still be able to come to the Huffington Post at the same URL, and find all the same content they’ve grown to love, plus a lot more–more local, more tech, more entertainment, more finance, and lots more video. We are fusing a legendary and powerful new media brand with a vibrant, innovative news organization, known for its distinctive voice, a highly engaged audience, an expertise in community-building, and a track record for demystifying the news and putting flesh and blood on the data while drawing our audience into the conversation.”

Huffington continued, “By uniting AOL and The Huffington Post, we are creating one of the largest destinations for smart content and community on the Internet. And we intend to keep making it better and better.”

Kenneth Lerer, The Huffington Post’s Co-Founder and Chairman, said, “The Huffington Post team has created a potent brand with the proven track record of knowing how to grow traffic, inform and entertain its readers and build a one-of-a-kind online community. Add that to the powerful scale and resources of AOL and you have the perfect combination for today and the future. Together these two companies will be a premier online content provider. From local citizen reporting through AOL’s Patch, to The Huffington Post’s national reporting on politics, business and culture, consumers will have access to everything they want whenever they want it.”

AOL has agreed to purchase The Huffington Post for $315 million, approximately $300 million of which will be paid in cash funded from cash on hand. The Huffington Post is privately owned by its two cofounders, as well as a group of investors. The proposed transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of government approvals. The boards of directors of each company and shareholders of The Huffington Post have approved the transaction. The transaction is expected to close in the late first- or early second-quarter 2011.

The Huffington Post over-indexes on educated, affluent users, reaching the key decision makers in C-suites around the globe. The Huffington Post speaks to this influential audience via a host of prominent voices on its group blog. Among those who have blogged on The Huffington Post are: President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Larry Page, Diane Sawyer, Buzz Aldrin, Nora Ephron, Bill Maher, Madeleine Albright, Robert Redford, Katie Couric, Neil Young, Rahm Emanuel, Mia Farrow, Senator Russ Feingold, Senator Al Franken, Ari Emanuel, Harry Shearer, Senator John Kerry, Representative Nancy Pelosi, Madonna, Lawrence Summers, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ryan Reynolds, Craig Newmark, Alec Baldwin, Aaron Sorkin, Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Russell Simmons, Sean Penn, Bill Gates, Norman Lear, Charlie Rose, Elizabeth Warren, Tavis Smiley, Sheryl Sandberg, George Clooney, and former President Bill Clinton. And the audience speaks back, generating four million comments a month***.

The Huffington Post’s affluent, influential audience, that is growing at a rate of 22 percent (December 2009 vs. December 2010)****, when combined with AOL’s massive scale, video offerings and local expertise, will represent an incredibly desirable demographic for a broad range of advertising partners across the board.

And here is Armstrong’s internal memo to the AOL staff:

AOLers,

We are taking another major step in the comeback of AOL. Today we are announcing that we have agreed to acquire The Huffington Post, one of the most exciting, influential, and fastest growing properties on the Internet. We believe in brands, quality journalism, and the positive role of communities in the world–The Huffington Post shares our values and the combination of the two companies will create the premier global and local media company on the Internet.

Co-founded six years ago by Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer, The Huffington Post has grown to become an industry leader–one of the Web’s most popular and innovative sources of online news, commentary, and information. Arianna and team have created a brand and a destination that focuses on the consumer experience. By combining The Huffington Post with AOL’s network of sites, thriving video offerings, local expertise and enormous reach, we will create a company that is laser-focused on serving our audiences across every platform imaginable–social, local, video, mobile and tablet.

The Huffington Post is core to our strategy and our 80:80:80 focus–80% of domestic spending is done by women, 80% of commerce happens locally and 80% of considered purchases are driven by influencers. The influencer part of the strategy is important and will be potent.

The Huffington Post is a strong influencer brand and it attracts a valuable audience, including a great focus on women’s content. In addition, Arianna Huffington is a world-renowned expert on women’s topics and issues, and has enabled The Huffington Post to grow rapidly by continually developing new audiences.

In the local area, the combination of the two companies will create a scaled connection between global and local communities on one platform. This will create a new way for people to get local and global information in a timely and entertaining way.

The Huffington Post will join the family of AOL Brands that are destinations for an influencer audience, brands like TechCrunch, Engadget, AutoBlog, and Moviefone. Uniquely, The Huffington Post is the platform for influential people–the people that drive trends, commerce, politics, entertainment, news, and information. Adding this strategic platform to our already strong network of sites, including the AOL homepage, has the potential to make AOL the most influential company in the content space.

Arianna Huffington is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the Internet space and someone that is even more successful in building communities and relationships in every corner of the globe. The Huffington Post and Arianna have created a company that has partnered with the most successful and well-known leaders in all aspects of society that touch important topics to give consumers direct access to the most influential decision makers and community leaders.

This acquisition will create a high-quality and diverse digital ecosystem encompassing local, national and international news, politics, entertainment, technology, fashion, sports, health, personal finance, green, lifestyle, the arts and more. This deal will combine the amazing talent at AOL with the innovative and talented staff of The Huffington Post. Here are just a few high-level points around what this deal brings to market:

* Together, AOL and The Huffington Post will have 117MM unduplicated domestic monthly UVs, and ~270MM monthly UVs worldwide (according to comScore Dec 2010).

* The Huffington Post is one of the fastest growing web properties on the Internet. It grew 22% last year–that’s faster than Twitter, which grew 18% – and 15x as quickly as the Internet grew last year (comScore Dec ’09-’10).

* Both AOL and The Huffington Post count powerful, affluent users among their top loyal visitors, significantly over-indexing in $100K+ income users.

* AOL passed Hulu in unique viewers on video in the fourth quarter of 2010; video views on AOL are up 400 percent year-over-year.

* Between AOL’s innovative Project Devil ad unit, engaging users for 27 seconds longer than traditional display ads, and The Huffington Post’s highly-vocal community, with 4MM+ comments per month, we will marry attention-grabbing content and brand experiences for both advertisers and consumers.

In the local area, the combination of the two companies will create a premier global/local syndication network at scale. This will create a new way for people to get local and global information in a timely, informative and entertaining way.

To maximize the strategic advantage of this great deal, we will be creating a new group at AOL called The Huffington Post Media Group. Within this group will be AOL Media, AOL Local & Mapping, AOL Search and our new friends at The Huffington Post. We will continue operating the towns structure, AOL.com and HuffingtonPost.com.

I’m thrilled to announce that Arianna Huffington will join AOL’s executive team as President and Editor in Chief of The Huffington Post Media Group. We have asked Jon Brod to lead the overall operational integration on the AOL side of the combined entities. Jon will lead the local group integration and work closely with David Eun and the teams in AOL Media. We will work quickly with The Huffington Post to create a combined organizational design to coincide with the deal closing. While we wait for the required regulatory reviews to be completed and the transaction to close before implementing the design, we will move very quickly to plan the details of the integration of the two companies. To this end, we will announce the new organizational structure as soon as possible.

In the meantime, we will continue creating great content and products for our consumers within the town structure and stay laser-focused on the aggressive goals we have set for our winter luge. We are on the right track and will continue our weekly operating cadence and town structure to drive successful results against our company goals.

Here’s a special message for all of you we taped to welcome The Huffington Post and Arianna to our AOL Family:

http://today.office.aol.com/company-news/2011/02/aol-agrees-buy-huffington-post

And of course we wanted to welcome Arianna to our “You’ve Got” video of the day–check her out on AOL.com.

We will be holding a company all hands meeting to address your questions related to today’s exciting news. We will video conference from our New York office on the 6th Floor at 9:30 AM ET and will be joined by Arianna Huffington and key executives from her organization. We will also be holding a call for our west coast offices at 2:00 PM ET and for our Patch offices at 2:45 PM ET. See below for meeting info (conference rooms will be sent out shortly).

AOL is playing to win…and The Huffington Post and AOL will occupy a unique place in the future of the Internet. Let’s go get it done.

–TA

(More full disclosure: As has been previously reported by MediaMemo, All Things Digital had the briefest and most preliminary of discussions with Armstrong about moving to AOL last year, while exploring several other options. All’s well that ended well: We stayed at Dow Jones, which is owned by News Corp.)

Verizon to iPhone Users: You Will Buy the $30-per-Month, Unlimited Data Plan and You Will Like It

John Paczkowski — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 11:29:22 +0000

When the iPhone goes live on Verizon’s network on Feb. 10, the carrier will indeed offer it with an unlimited data plan, as I reported earlier this month. But not because of an exception it’s made for the iPhone–because it’s doing away with its tiered smartphone data plan entirely.

A data-service pricing document leaked to Engadget suggests Verizon has scrapped its $15-for-150MB plan, leaving a mandatory $30-per-month unlimited data plan as the sole option for “feature phones and 3G smartphones” like the iPhone. Note the specificity of that designation–it excludes upcoming LTE handsets, which will presumably debut with higher, tiered data-pricing plans.

Meanwhile, rival AT&T continues to offer the iPhone with two capped data plans–200MB for $15 a month, and 2GB for $25.

[Image Credit: Engadget]

PlayBook on Track for Q1 Kick-Off

John Paczkowski — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 11:00:00 +0000

Research in Motion’s PlayBook tablet is on schedule for launch in the first calendar quarter of 2011. That’s the word from the company itself, which was forced to issue a hasty clarification after its announcement of a 4G version of the device launching this summer raised fears that the Wi-Fi-only version might be delayed.

“The BlackBerry PlayBook is expected to begin shipping in the U.S. in Q1,” RIM said in an email statement.

And there you have it.

Meanwhile, the device is garnering mixed reviews at CES. After some hands-on time with it, Engadget described the PlayBook as “blazingly fast, comfortable to hold, and intuitive to use.” Gizmodo liked it as well, talking up its hardware, responsive display and UI. “RIM’s got something here that could really stand on top of the bajillion other crappy tablets that are going to launch this year,” the site concluded. “They just have to take it the rest of the way.”

Wunderlich Securities analyst Matthew Robison agreed. “RIM’s PlayBook strategy [is] exceptionally compelling— pending successful execution,” he wrote in a note from CES. “The company’s ace card in tablets is sure-fire security for IT departments who loathe adding another piece of client software to enterprise networks.”

But others, like Wedge Partners analyst and RIM bear Brian Blair, were not so impressed. Though he praised the device’s sturdy build and crisp screen, he slagged its lack of native email and calendar support.

“There is not a built-in e-mail program that we saw, nor is there a calendar: arguably the two most critical features of a Blackberry,” Blair said. “Calendar and Email are only available, if the PlayBook is “tethered” to a Blackberry. Short of that, users need to use the browser for e-mail and calendar.”

And, admittedly, that does seem silly. Unless you’re a CIO. In which case, you probably prefer to push data (and remotely wipe it, if necessary) from one device instead of two, and appreciate the gesture.

Still, Blair came away with the impression that the PlayBook isn’t yet fully baked, and to be fair, it isn’t–after all, this is a pre-release device.

“We know this is an early build and that bugs are being worked through over the next couple of months, but nearly every feature we tried on our demo unit was having problems,” he concluded. “The video player froze and the games wouldn’t play. The only thing that worked was the ‘Coverflow-like’ scrolling of the different applications, which the device did with ease.”

But as Blair himself observed, a lot can change in three months. And presumably RIM is doing its damndest to ensure that it does–before Apple debuts the iPad 2, which will undoubtedly become the new standard against which all tablets are compared.

In the meantime, here are a few PlayBook promo videos RIM released in conjunction with CES.

Palm Boss Jon Rubinstein: We Still Have a Chance to be a Major Player

John Paczkowski — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 22:50:07 +0000

When Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein last appeared on the D stage in 2009 he was bringing the Pre to market in a bet-the-company move to recover the handset maker’s long-lost glory. Palm’s new operating system, webOS, had been well received at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier in the year and the company’s share price had ascended from $3 to $10 on its promise.

Two years later, Palm no longer has a share price, having been acquired by Hewlett-Packard, and Rubinstein, no longer its CEO, runs HP’s new mobile devices unit. But with the iconic Silicon Valley company backing it and “doubling down on webOS” and a new tablet based on the OS headed to market, its future is perhaps equally as promising, if not more so.

2:57 pm:
The session kicks off with video of a previous interview with Rubinstein in which he–the “father of the iPod”–claimed never to have used an iPhone.

So, have you touched an iPhone yet? Kara asks.

Rubinstein laughs. “Oh, we’re going to go through this again? Have I used one as my own device? No. Have I touched one? Yes.”

2:58 pm: Rubinstein continues: For me personally, we have lots of people who use iPhones and we have competitive analysis groups who review competing products, but I don’t want to be tainted by another experience. I want to come at this with a fresh perspective and I think what we’re seeing now in this industry is that everyone is copying the iPhone.

3:00 pm: Sorry, we’re having some connectivity issues here….

Moving on now to Palm and its ultimate acquisition by HP.

I think we did have many of the elements to be successful. We had a great team, a great product, a great product pipeline….But I think the market moved too fast and when we looked forward we saw a very clear way to where we could get the company to profitability, but we didn’t see a way to get it to scale….We could have been a small, successful company, but I don’t think that’s long-term sustainable in this business.”

So it was an issue of scale and not the “creepy lady marketing?” Kara asks.

Rubinstein says no, though he concedes the Palm Pre could have been marketed better.

3:04 pm: Ultimately, says, Rubinstein, we just ran out of runway…. We looked at a variety of different alternatives, and at the end of the day we decided that the best thing to do was to hook up with a partner that could get webOS to scale….The most expeditious outcome was to partner with HP.

3:05 pm: What other companies were interested in acquiring you? Kara asks. Rubinstein won’t say. What he will say is that the one that made the most sense was HP. “They didn’t have a great mobile strategy, but they had the means to get webOS to scale….A company like HP needs to be in control of its own strategy….This is not ‘game over.”

3:07 pm: How badly did HP need Palm? “Look,” says Rubinstein, “HP is the largest computer company in the world…it needs a mobile strategy. And it needs a mobile OS of its own….They needed to be in this space, and now they’re very jazzed about webOS.

3:08 pm: How about the Mark Hurd scandal? Was it much of a distraction for Palm? Rubinstein says it wasn’t. Palm was relatively new to the company when it occurred and was thus unaffected. “There was some turmoil for a few days,” he says. “That’s about it.”

3:10 pm: Moving on now to Palm’s role within HP. “What we chose to do as part of the acquistion was to integrate part of Palm into HP and keep part of it separate….The engineering team is essentially separate…things like HR and finance are handled by HP….From my perspective, what we were planning on doing and what HP wanted to do were very well aligned.”

Post acquisition, says Rubinstein, as soon as we aligned our road maps, we were off and running. He notes that internal relationships with divisions like HP Labs have been quite helpful.

Will the Palm name continue? asks Kara.

[Sorry, more connectivity problems.]
Rubinstein: That’s something we’re debating. What do you think we should do?

Kara: Get rid of it.

Rubinstein: Okay [jokingly]….I don’t really have much of a connection to the Palm brand.

3:16 pm: What’s Rubinstein’s view on the competitive environment? “Look, this is a huge market. The growth is phenomenal. If we roll back three years to when I started this Palm adventure, mobile was the place to be. And it still is today. I think we still have the chance to become a major player if we do the right things.”

3:20 pm: What’s the more important device, the phone or the tablet? asks Kara. Rubinstein says he doesn’t think people will have just one device. “It used to be that people shared a device. These days, people have multiple devices. So the new question is how do these devices interact so there’s a seemless user experience across devices….The ability to have a unified experience on all your devices is very important.”

3:21 pm: The conversation moves on to carrier relationships. Rubinstein observes that AT&T is doing pretty well in the Bay Area. “Just for you,” quips Kara.

3:23 pm: And on to the Q&A. First question from Engadget’s Josh Topolsky. What’s the Palm story that’s going to make people buy your phones? How do you convince a consumer to buy your stuff when you’re competing with the likes of Google and Apple?

Rubinstein: We really do have a unique experience compared to everyone else….The other concept around this is the connected device strategy. We’re in this transition now where we’re integrating into HP, so we’re still ramping up.

3:25 pm: Kara circles back, asks about differentiation and how HP can break through all the marketing noise. Where do you think the next radical change in the mobile market is going to come from? she asks.

I think it’s going to be incremental change, not a radical. I think it’s all about bringing this vision of a more connected world to our users.

Kara asks about forthcoming webOS devices.

Rubinstein gives the standard answer: “Stay tuned.” But he added, “This will be a very different conversation next year.”

3:25 pm: And that’s it.

Oops, Was That a PlayStation Phone I Dropped?

Ina Fried — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 00:47:23 +0000

We’re not sure if it was left in a bar for someone to find, but a video of the rumored PlayStation phone is now making the rounds.

It’s not the first we’ve seen of the Android-based device. Engadget posted photos last month, though the new video (below) gives more of a feel for the device in action.

Why hadn’t someone already thought of putting a game controller on a phone? Oh, wait, Nokia tried that back with the N-Gage (pictured here, for those who never had the pleasure). Of course, it didn’t have Android and required developers to create all-new games that consumers had to then buy.

It will be interesting to see whether this phone, when and if it makes it to market, is compatible with any other Sony products and if existing Android games can take advantage of the phone’s controller without having to do a big rewrite of their code.

Finally! Google's Chrome App Store Coming Next Week

Peter Kafka — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 20:31:17 +0000

Still waiting to see the Google Chrome app store? Circle next Tuesday on your calendar: People familiar with the company’s plans tell me Google will open up the store–at least a bit–on December 7.

That jibes with what I’d heard in October, as well as with reporting this week from TechCrunch. And there’s a decent chance that Google will be showing off more than just a store that day. Engadget, for starters, thinks we’ll see a Google-branded netbook designed for Chrome that day as well.

As far as the store goes: My understanding is that the marketplace, designed to showcase Web apps, will be available for anyone who’s using the beta version of the Chrome browser. So the rest of you have a couple of days to upgrade.

UPDATE: There you go: — Google’s Chrome Team just announced a media event to “share some exciting news about Chrome” on Tuesday, Dec. 7.

The Turducken-Free All Things D Thanksgiving Reader (And Watcher)

Liz Gannes — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 20:10:15 +0000

Hold the Turducken!

Even without that freakish Thanksgiving treat, the Web is full of fun diversions on every topic, including the thankful, enhanced-patted-down long weekend of consumption Americans have ahead of us.

Read on for some of my Thanksgiving ephemeralia picks for this year:

Here’s a historical tidbit I became aware of after reading the National Archives online today: Did you know that in 1863 President Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday to be held on the fourth Thursday in November, but in 1939 President Franklin D. Roosevelt changed it to the third Thursday to “to lengthen the Christmas shopping season and boost the economy which was still recovering from the Depression”?

The National Archives Web site also provides some documents from Thanksgiving throughout the years, including this one of President Richard Nixon and a turkey.

On to the food. Want to impress your guests with something less passé than, but still thematically consistent with, Turducken? You are in luck. Here are two fantastic alternatives, via YouTube:

The Cherpumple consists of three full pies encased in three full cakes (via @hunterwalk):

Or, there’s the TurBaconEpic (a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig):

“Good Morning America” tries, and fails, to demonstrate how to put out a grease fire (via Gawker.tv):

As for the other topic at hand on this holiday–the new widely derided U.S. airport security procedures–everybody’s favorite Taiwanese animators at Next Media Animation have prepared their usual insightful commentary (from last week, but still good):

For further reading:

Engadget’s frequently updated list of Black Friday gadget deals.
Boing Boing’s roundup of Thanksgiving science.
The Wall Street Journal’s report on using your phone to find shopping deals. Google says there are 30 times more mobile shopping searches than three years ago (though that’s smaller than I would think given the growth of the mobile Internet in that time).

Welcome to ATD: The Very Enterprising Arik Hesseldahl

Kara Swisher — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 12:20:53 +0000

And Arik Hesseldahl (pictured here) makes it four.

New reporters and bloggers for All Things Digital, that is.

The well-known tech writer–based in New York–will be covering the enterprise arena, as well as chips, for us.

As most regular readers know, this site has been expanding its staff, adding even more top-notch editorial might to our already terrific work.

That includes Ina Fried on mobile, Liz Gannes on social and Tricia Duryee on e-commerce.

All are key areas of tech coverage for ATD, obviously. But, as we thought about it, it was clear that there was not nearly enough cutting-edge tech journalism going on in the enterprise space.

It’s an important topic, involving a range of companies, such as Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and a spate of interesting start-ups. And, did you hear Google’s moving into enterprise?

While all the attention in the tech press is usually focused on the latest minor innovation from Facebook or some other Silicon Valley phenom, enterprise is also a hotbed of change and disruption, as businesses seek to understand and adapt to what digital technologies mean to them.

Thus, we turned to Arik, who has a long history covering a wide range of beats in tech.

He’s most recently been working for Bloomberg Businessweek, where for five years he covered it all: PCs, consumer electronics and semiconductors.

He was also the third person to write Businessweek.com’s popular “Byte of the Apple” column, and contributed to a companion blog of the same name.

Before joining Businessweek, Arik spent five years at Forbes.com, covering pretty much every aspect of tech, writing a daily column called “Ten O’Clock Tech,” a daily survey of a single new tech product that predated properties like Engadget and Gizmodo.

Before that, he cut his tech teeth learning all there was to know about the chip industry as a reporter for a now-defunct trade newspaper called Electronic News, which is notable for being the place where the phrase “Silicon Valley” was first used in print.

One Friday in March, 2000, in fact, he actually got to say “Stop the presses” to editors in San Jose, Calif., as the paper was being put to bed, with the dramatic news that AMD would the following Monday announce its first chip to run at the then-blistering speed of 1GHz.

The story was flashed to subscribers of a daily fax newsletter–quaint, no?–that night before tearing out that issue’s front page. Previously, chip speeds were measured in Megahertz.

Arik attended the University of Oregon, and is originally from that state. After a two-year stint reporting for a daily newspaper in Idaho, he moved to New York to attend graduate school at Columbia University.

He has been a New Yorker ever since. When not working, he can often be found catching a jazz show at the Village Vanguard.

Welcome to ATD: The Very Enterprising Arik Hesseldahl

Kara Swisher — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 13:20:44 +0000

And Arik Hesseldahl (pictured here) makes it four.

New reporters and bloggers for All Things Digital, that is.

The well-known tech writer–based in New York–will be covering the enterprise arena, as well as chips, for us.

As most regular readers know, this site has been expanding its staff, adding even more top-notch editorial might to our already terrific work.

That includes Ina Fried on mobile, Liz Gannes on social and Tricia Duryee on e-commerce.

All are key areas of tech coverage for ATD, obviously. But, as we thought about it, it was clear that there was not nearly enough cutting-edge tech journalism going on in the enterprise space.

Thus, we turned to Arik, who has a long history covering a wide range of beats in tech.

He’s most recently been working for Bloomberg Businessweek, where for five years he covered it all: PCs, consumer electronics and semiconductors.

He was also the third person to write Businessweek.com’s popular “Byte of the Apple” column, and contributed to a companion blog of the same name.

The story was flashed to subscribers of a daily fax newsletter–quaint, no?–that night before tearing out that issue’s front page. Previously, chip speeds were measured in Megahertz.

He has been a New Yorker ever since. When not working, he can often be found catching a jazz show at the Village Vanguard.

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong Talks About the New Homepage (And Not–Though I Tried–About Yahoo)

Kara Swisher — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 13:15:41 +0000

AOL reports its third-quarter earnings on Wednesday, and investors are not expecting much, as its core dial-up business dies and its weak advertising business continues to lag.

In fact, except for all the hubbub about the various–and unfulfilled–scenarios around a possible hook-up with Yahoo, Wall Street still has a big wait-and-see when it has to do with the long-suffering company.

But that has not stopped CEO Tim Armstrong from using his well-practiced jazz hands over and over, in what is a laudable effort to create a credible narrative for AOL’s future as a content hub.

That’s included everything from cost cuts and layoffs, to acquisitions and the shedding of assets, to new advertising initiatives with sassy names such as the recent “Project Devil,” to new management, to–this week–a new homepage to show off the content.

As I wrote Friday, as it rolled out:

“The new version–with a clean and spare design and a rotating logo–prominently features local news, video and content from AOL’s network of sites, such as Engadget.”

Here’s a video interview of Armstrong showing it off with another AOL exec–and please watch to the end, when I ask him about the Yahoo situation and he deftly shimmies out of answering:

[ See post to watch video ]

Here's AOL's Now-Live New Homepage (And Welcome Back to the Adorkable Lindsay Campbell)

Kara Swisher — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:44:00 +0000

Today, BoomTown interviewed AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, along with NPR CEO Vivian Schiller, at the Online News Association Conference in Washington, D.C., about the future of journalism on the Web.

Afterward, I talked to him about the future of content on AOL, most particularly its new homepage revamp that focuses intently on editorial “curation,” rather than a more social direction being taken by rival Yahoo.

I also got a short demo of the new homepage, which is rolling out right now, instead of Monday as has been reported.

The new version–with a clean and spare design and a rotating logo–prominently features local news, video and content from AOL’s network of sites, such as Engadget.

It also launches three original video shows: A morning promotional feature called “You’ve Got”; a two-minute news program called “Daybreak,” with former “Wallstrip” host Lindsay Campbell–yay!–and produced by Ben Silverman’s Electus; and “The One,” an expert/opinion segment, done by Next New Networks.

The redo is yet another splashy move by AOL and Armstrong to push the company into a new direction of growth as its core access business declines.

It’s one wrapped almost completely around content, in hopes that creating premium branded content will attract lucrative advertising.

So far, not so good, as AOL’s ad revenues continue to lag in the midst of a difficult turnaround effort.

Presumably, Armstrong hopes a new look will help goose results in a better direction.

Here is a screenshot of the page, which is now available to users (click here to see the full image):