patch

Voices

Huffington’s Role Shrinks at AOL

Keach Hagey, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on May 4 at 5:00 am PT

Arianna Huffington acknowledged Thursday that her portfolio at AOL Inc. is being scaled back to include only the Huffington Post, undoing a structure put in place when her Web site was acquired by AOL last year.

QOTD: A Little Spite Music

I’ve never worked for a company that has been as scrutinized, criticized, and coal-raked as this one. … We have critics on Wall Street, critics in the media, local critics, national critics, the business press, the journalism reviews, bloggers, etc. There are so many that I’ve come to think of them as a single large, screechy, off-key band called BI and the Haters. It’s music to kill yourself by.

– Patch editor in chief Brian Farnham bids farewell to AOL’s network of hyperlocal sites and its critics

Proxy Ho? Like Yahoo, AOL Could Face Alternate Board Slate From Irked Investor as Early as Today.

Kara Swisher in News on February 24 at 1:46 am PT

Is AOL ready to come about? Hard to see.

CES Hangover: What You Might Have Missed

Lauren Goode in News on January 17 at 7:59 am PT

We came, we saw, we conquered … but we couldn’t possibly write about every one of the more than 20,000 products showcased in Las Vegas last week. Here’s a quick catch-up.

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

Kara Swisher in News on June 28, 2011 at 6:05 am PT

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.

At Tomorrow’s AOL Investor Day, Will “Execution” Focus Mean Cylinders Firing or Heads Rolling?

Kara Swisher in Media on June 15, 2011 at 6:04 am PT

Talking to AOL CEO Tim Armstrong earlier this week about its investors day tomorrow, he used the word “execution” a lot. No, not the kind evoking a firing squad if he did not succeed at turning around the New York-based Internet giant soon as he has long promised. He means the good kind.

Voices

Remaking AOL in Huffington's Image

Jessica E. Vascellaro, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on April 7, 2011 at 12:00 am PT

The Huffington Post made a name for itself through a formula of buzzy political commentary splashed with celebrity gossip and traffic-grabbing tricks. Now its co-founder, Arianna Huffington, is plunging into a campaign to rescue AOL Inc.

AOL-HuffPo Deal Officially Closes Today–More Big Media Hires Signal New Content Direction Under Arianna

Kara Swisher in News on March 7, 2011 at 4:01 am PT

AOL will officially close its $315 million acquisition of the Huffington Post today, sources said, only one month after it was struck. To celebrate, the now-official content head Arianna Huffington will be poaching another clutch of big journalists to add to AOL’s new Huffington Post Media Group unit.

News Byte

AOL Buys Local Aggregator Outside.In

Peter Kafka in Media on March 4, 2011 at 7:11 am PT

AOL has purchased Outside.In, one of many startups that’s tried to figure out how to make local and “hyper-local” news work. The New York-based startup didn’t seem to crack the code either, but at least you can see why AOL might be interested in its team or technology, given Tim Armstrong’s focus on local with his Patch program. Business Insider first reported the transaction.