AOL Moves the Furniture Around Some More, With Brod to Patch

Here’s an internal memo just sent out by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, in which he buries the lede by noting the business partner of content czar Arianna Huffington, Jon Brod, will move to work on its local Patch effort and Mapquest mapping unit full time. There’s also some branding streamlining, which is akin to moving the couch over near the window where it looks better.
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With David Eun Departure, "The AOL Way" Makes Way for the Arianna Way

Despite all the polite throat-clearing in the various internal memos coming out of AOL today, with a rejiggering of its content management–including the ousting of Media and Studios President David Eun–what really happened was what sources said will be an about-face from a recent strategy of how to run its media business. That is likely to begin with the hip-checking of “The AOL Way,” which many sources tell BoomTown was Eun’s brainchild, once the $315 million acquisition of the Huffington Post is completed.

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

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–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 editor in chief of a new unit that has purview over all of AOL content properties. The deal was signed just this afternoon.

AOL Sells Content Recommender Surphace to Content Recommender Outbrain

Or in the words of the trade: Here’s a story you may be interested in.

Sphere Leader Has Exited AOL–But Staying on as "Special" Venture Advisor

Tony Conrad, CEO and co-founder of Sphere–the contextually relevant content engine AOL bought in the spring of 2008 for upward of $25 million–left the Time Warner online unit last month, several sources have told BoomTown in recent weeks. But, in an effort by AOL’s CEO Tim Armstrong to hold onto entrepreneurial talent, Conrad has agreed to become “Special Advisor” to its AOL Ventures Unit. Apparently, he is also mulling a new start-up and remains a VC too.
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Sticky Situation of the Month: Ex-Yahoo Communications Head (and "Peanut Butter Manifesto" Scribe) Garlinghouse to Helm Similar Unit at AOL

Yahoo exec Brad Garlinghouse–famous for his controversial “Peanut Butter Manifesto,” which correctly chided the Internet giant for becoming so lugubrious several years ago–is taking a job at AOL very similar to the one he left at Yahoo last year. Garlinghouse, who will remain on the West Coast, will be named president of Internet and mobile communications at AOL, putting him in charge of the New York-based Time Warner online unit’s powerful email and instant-messaging properties, including ICQ and AIM. He will also be, said AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, its “CEO of Silicon Valley for us.”
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Exclusive: Patch Media CEO Brod Now Heading AOL's Venture Unit

In yet another appointment of an exec close to AOL Chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong, Patch Media CEO Jon Brod has taken over the new venture arm of the Time Warner online unit. He ran Patch for Armstrong and was president and COO of Polar Capital Group, Armstrong’s private investment company, which is focused on the media, technology and sports sectors. Now Brod will helm AOL Ventures, a new unit of AOL that Armstrong created as part of a larger new strategy to invest in new things, and he will manage a portfolio of some of its more difficult recent acquisitions.
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