Saul Hansell, the prominent former New York Times tech reporter who went to AOL several years ago to head one of its content efforts called Seed, will leave the company to become an entrepreneur in residence at Betaworks.

The move to the New York venture firm is the right one now, said Hansell in an interview today.

“I have been watching people go starts thing for a long time and now I want to go start things,” he said. “I’ve got some ideas around news that I want to explore.”

Hansell, in a blog post, did try to not paint the move as as anti-AOL one:

“I know my friends in the technology press well enough to suspect some of them will see my move as part of a broader trend at AOL. I’m not sure the easy take is the right one. Based on my experience, I am more bullish on [AOL CEO] Tim Armstrong’s clear vision of a company built from the ground up for online journalism and the potential of AOL’s assets to achieve that vision.”

Hansell joined AOL the day after it split from Time Warner to run what he jokingly calls the “free-range, organic content farm” of Seed and has remained through its many iterations, including the purchase of the Huffington Post.

He is currently the “Big News” editor in that unit, which centers around topics.

Here’s Hansell’s blog post on the move:

Heading into the workshop.

Two years ago, when I explained to my children why I left the New York Times, one of the greatest spots ever to be a reporter and writer, I told them that I wanted to be an inventor. Since then, I’ve had the thrilling experience of being part of AOL, which is doing more than nearly anyone else to rethink the way that news is gathered, presented and paid for.

Now it’s time to strike out on my own and seek my fortune as an inventor. I’ve left AOL, and Monday I started as an entrepreneur in residence at Betaworks. If you’re not familiar with it, Betaworks has started and invested in a number of companies that are on the vanguard of real-time social experiences — several of which relate to news and publishing — including Bit.ly, ChartBeat, TweetDeck, and News.Me. It’s run by John Bortwick, whom I first met in 1997 when he sold his startup, Total New York, to America Online. We’ve become friends, and I couldn’t think of a more fertile environment in which to germinate a new idea than the bustle of creativity bursting out of the Betaworks loft in the meat packing district.

I know my friends in the technology press well enough to suspect some of them will see my move as part of a broader trend at AOL. I’m not sure the easy take is the right one. Based on my experience, I am more bullish on Tim Armstrong’s clear vision of a company built from the ground up for online journalism and the potential of AOL’s assets to achieve that vision. At AOL, I’ve had the pleasure of working with some of the smartest and most dedicated journalists, engineers and product executives I’ve ever met. And the brilliant acquisition of the Huffington Post brought in many more people who have been outpacing the industry through journalistic innovation.

I will always be grateful to Tim for giving me the chance to prove that I had more to contribute to a journalistic organization than simply articles and to Arianna for inviting me to join the HuffPost team. And I’m in debt to so many who offered so much advice –some of which I ignored to my own detriment — on the nuances of technology, product design, PowerPoint, and the ways of big companies. Yet as AOL continues to refine its organization, it became clear that this was the time for me to try my hand at starting a company.

It’s too soon to say much about what I’m doing. But I think there is a lot left to invent around both how to present news to people that takes advantage of the technology available today.

I expect you’ll see a lot more soon.

Just like other parts of the world, Silicon Valley has its own special magic during the holidays. We gather together around the old-timey glow of a CRT monitor and drag out our old CDs–especially the ones that say things like “Sign up for AOL now and receive 500 hours free.” With the familiar tone of a dial-up modem log-in on the stereo, we can almost smell the sweet aroma of irrational exuberance of holidays past. It’s this seasonal magic of limitless possibility that captured the tech word this week, featuring the miracle of rebirth, new jobs, and the greatest miracle of all, a possible Verizon (VZ) iPhone.

Kara soothed some furrowed brows with her NPR voice early in the week, before heading out to New York to attend the Diddy-studded relaunch party of Aol (AOL). She said that the real miracle of Aol seems to be its incredible resilience. Weekend Update thinks the 25-year-old online player was bitten by a radioactive roach sometime in the late 80s—it’s the only explanation. In any case, at the event, Kara caught former CBS (CBS) interactive head Quincy Smith on camera briefly and followed with a post about his part in a new niche banking venture. She rounded out BoomTown this week with a wrap-up of the party, featuring a little video chat with good ol’ Woz. Apple (APPL) co-founder Steve Wozniak was his usual jolly self, which got Weekend Update to thinking: He’s friendly, loves gadgets more than any human should and always seems to be sequestered in some workshop, toiling away before emerging for special occasions. We might be getting a little “Glenn Beck” paranoid here, but Woz and Claus do rhyme.

Digital Daily was in the holiday spirit too and brought us some prognostications a la the ghost of Christmas future. AT&T (T) is foretelling a grave future if it can’t get its coverage in order. No “incentive” programs are in place yet, but the company did release an app that allows users to geo-tag locations where service is bad, though we’re not sure yet what they’ll do with the data. More iPhones on the network plus lack of action may slow down connection speeds so much that even Jacob Marley could beat AT&T in a bandwidth race, and we’re pretty sure he’s wrapped in chains. While AT&T grapples with correcting its own network transgressions, John posted about a prognostication from an industry analyst who says that as time progresses we’re increasingly likely to see a Verizon iPhone. While the analysis is complex, the math is simple. Over time, Apple will see fewer and fewer iPhone converts at AT&T as the carrier slowly slurps up those remaining in the bottom of the cup. Moral of the story: We may start hearing that sucking sound between 2010 and 2012. John finished out the week with a snapshot of Aol. There were fewer sugarplums and candy canes and more about the long, wintery walk ahead of the oddly new Internet player. The reality is that shares in the post-spinoff Aol were down a few points, even as management was doing its best to put on a brave face. Sometimes a fruitcake is still a fruitcake, even if you gift-wrap it.

MediaMemo was in the holiday spirit too, even if the world of media is a little more somber this holiday season. Peter started things off with coverage of a new Nielsen report that puts TV viewing down somewhat, even as Internet video viewership rises. While one explanation might be that the screentime balance is finally beginning to shift, Weekend Update has another hypothesis: There are not nearly so many hilarious cat-dressed-as-Santa videos on TV as on the Internet, and that’s just want the holiday viewers want. Arguably, the biggest shakeup this week was over at Facebook, where the elves have been working feverishly on yet another privacy agreement. Peter reported that king elf Zuckerberg thinks sharing is the best default and sort of puts his profile where his mouth is (even if he keeps certain data, like his cellphone number, just for his friends). Finally, not to be left out of the Aol party, Peter also delivered some insight about the shape of things to come with a post about New York Times veteran Saul Hansell heading over to do some kind of work in Aol’s new content factory. No word yet on what sort of gift this particular wise man will be delivering.

Walt and Katie were in full swing this week, working hard to make sense of some of those last-minute gift items. Personal Technology was devoted to the Nook, a much anticipated e-reader from Barnes and Noble (BKS). Similar to the Amazon (AMZN) Kindle in its display capabilities, the Nook sets itself apart, in theory, by augmenting its text display with a small color screen to aid navigation. Walt said this one needed a little more time in the workshop and that future iterations may take better advantage of the interesting dual-screen idea. Mossberg’s Mailbox wasn’t full of tins of cookies yet, but Walt did answer some mail about the end of Microsoft (MSFT) Money for the Mac and recording all your favorite shows onto a computer. He also helped one wayward would-be smartphone owner examine options less costly than the Motorola (MOT) Droid. Katie came to every mom’s rescue with a great post breaking down the Wii, Xbox and Playstation 3 field. If that weren’t enough, she includes a cheat sheet of features and options that will take the confusion out of the impending trip through your favorite electronics superstore gauntlet.

While we’re not yet roasting chestnuts (Kara hates it when we start fires in the office), AllThingsD most certainly is getting its stockings hung with care. Is it weird that we are noshing on a potato latke while we do that? Either way, stay tuned to the AllThingsD crew, and please feel free to leave comments–no one likes an empty mailbox during the holidays. Weekend Update will catch you again next week.

These boasts grew less frequent in recent months as the company’s hiring binge drew to a close, then switched into reverse when AOL announced it would need to shed a third of its staff. Meanwhile, AOL’s plans to inject automation into its content factory freaked out both employees and outsiders.

So the company’s most recent hire, announced shortly before AOL (AOL) separated from Time Warner (TWX), may help soothe some frayed nerves: New York Times (NYT) veteran Saul Hansell, who will run AOL’s new Seed.com content-creation platform.

But what does that actually mean? Is Hansell going to be running “AOL’s News Borg,” as Gawker put it? Or something less ominous?

I talked to Hansell yesterday and the answer is…not really clear.

Hansell, who spent 17 years at the Times, can’t spell out exactly what he’s going to do at AOL because he’s not exactly sure himself. He says he reached out to AOL CEO Tim Armstrong when the paper announced its most recent round of buyouts in October, and then he and the company went about creating a job that made sense for him.

But beyond his new title, “programming director,” a lot of what Hansell will do at his new gig is do is up in the air. The positive spin: That’s okay because uncertainty is a way of life at a start-up and AOL is in many ways a company that has to reinvent itself on the fly, just like a start-up. You can fill in the less positive interpretation of this yourself.

Hansell does have some big-picture ideas about AOL’s ability to combine its audience, workforce, technology and ad sales to produce a next-generation publishing platform. And in the interview, he offers a very nice parable about visiting Amazon’s (AMZN) warehouse, where technology and humans coexist quite nicely.

Okay. But what about the robots he’s supposed to be in charge of? “I don’t know anything about the robots,” Hansell says. “I haven’t gotten there.”

Anyway, Hansell was a good sport about letting me shove a Flip camera very close to his face, and he can tell his story much better than I can. So here you go:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091211/aols-newest-hire/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20081209/kara-visits-the-nyts-saul-hansell-and-gets-the-non-mortgaged-tour-of-the-new-hq/ http://allthingsd.com/20081209/kara-visits-the-nyts-saul-hansell-and-gets-the-non-mortgaged-tour-of-the-new-hq/#comments Tue, 09 Dec 2008 08:01:12 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=7394

If BoomTown had known on my recent visit that the New York Times (NYT) was trying to borrow money, using its spanking new building as collateral, I might have brought a big bag of greenbacks with me just to say I held a mortgage on the stunning edifice.

No matter, as I got a most excellent free tour of the Renzo Piano-designed building at 40th Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan and lunch last week from the Times’s longtime and sharp tech reporter Saul Hansell, whom I have known since AOL reigned supreme over the Web landscape.

(Apparently, his link-averse boss told him to watch me like a hawk on my visit, in case I might shoplift some secret tech news stories they were working on. As if the tiny but crack ATD blog team needs any kind of help from the big, bad Times!)

And, because I aim to annoy, I prodded Hansell into waxing a bit on the state of the Internet and the tech sector, from his new cubicle on the lower news floors of the really impressive Times HQ.

(Having worked in the sad-sack, grimy offices of two major newspapers, it is a revelation of what the newsroom of the future should look like.)

Listen up to what Hansell has to say, because while he is indeed worthy competition for ATD, the veteran reporter has been around the block and has picked up a thing or two.

Most importantly, he has also done an amazing job transforming himself in his new life as a blogger for the Times’s Bits blog.

Here’s the video interview:

[ See post to watch video ]

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