New York -- In a surprising turn or events, just four days after personal profile startup About.me, threw its doors open to the public, has been scooped up by web portal AOL on Monday for and undisclosed sum. It will be incorporated with the consumer applications division, led by AOL exec Brad Garlinghouse.
2010
AOL Scoops-Up Personal Profile Startup “About.me” Four Days After Launch
- 21 December 2010
- Abhijeet Kashyap
- Hits: 4708
AOL Acquires Digital Display Advertising Startup Pictela
- 18 December 2010
- Nisha Gandhi
- Hits: 4218
New York -- Ailing Internet outfit AOL Inc., after making several acquisition during the past few months, on Thursday said it has scooped up New York-based digital advertising company Pictela Inc., the developer of a technology platform for serving and distributing high-definition display ads in an effort to bring magazine-quality photography to banner ads, along with the interactivity digital provides to attract more ad dollars from big brands by selling larger, glitzier ad formats.
AOL Tries To Boost Project Phoenix With Unblab Acquisition
- 02 December 2010
- Abhijeet Kashyap
- Hits: 3733
Los Angeles -- Internet pioneer AOL not only outsmarted Facebook in unveiling its upgraded email/messaging service, it also seemed to win the style battle. AOL has just acquired email prioritization app Unblab, according to an email sent from Unblab's founder Eli Holder.
AOL Video To Unify Disparate Content Offerings Under One Roof
- 24 November 2010
- Rahul Chatterjee
- Hits: 3137
New York -- AOL Inc., the Internet portal site in the midst of transforming itself, on Tuesday announced that it is reorganizing its growing roster of video assets under one roof, dubbed as AOL Video.
AOL Rolls Out “Project Phoenix” Update To Its New Webmail App
- 16 November 2010
- Abhijeet Kashyap
- Hits: 2282
New York -- Once ubiquitous, having lost the email crown long ago to Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo, now continuing its efforts to regain its glory, AOL unveiled a beta version of the new AOL mail -- aptly code named "Project Phoenix" -- with snazzy features to streamline communications.
IAC's Barry Diller Surrenders Search Battle To Google, Will Focus On Q & A
- 12 November 2010
- Jitesh Pillai
- Hits: 1594
Washington -- If you have been on the web for around a decade now then you would know that Ask.com, the immortal underdog in the search engine game is giving up its search efforts and will be focusing exclusively on Q & A from now on.
AOL Partners With Next New Networks - Debuts New Video Program “The ONE”
- 09 November 2010
- Farukh Shaikh
- Hits: 1448
New York -- Attempting to keep pace with the emerging industry trends, AOL Inc., today announced an alliance with Ben Silverman's digital studio Electus and Next New Networks to produce original daily video program that will be featured on its recently re-branded homepage AOL.com.
AOL Launches Redesigned Homepage, Focuses On Video, Local Content
- 02 November 2010
- Hemant Patel
- Hits: 3194
New York -- In an attempt to keep pace with escalating competition in the search and advertising business, AOL is trying to claim its glory again after breaking away from Time Warner. The struggling Internet pioneer has rolled out a newly redesigned homepage with more of a focus on video and local content.
AOL Officially Scoops Up Influential TechCrunch, Adds To Tech Blog Stable
- 29 September 2010
- Deepti Dhava
- Hits: 1821
San Francisco -- AOL Inc. chief executive Tim Armstrong on Tuesday confirmed that his company has scooped up the technology blog TechCrunch Inc., one of the most influential blogs in Silicon Valley, for an undisclosed sum, adding it to their arsenal of content sites that range from the gadget blog Engadget to local news site Patch.com, as the Internet giant looks to expand its offerings of critical content to its audience.
AOL Unleashes New Online Ad System Code Named: “Project Devil”
- 28 September 2010
- Farukh Shaikh
- Hits: 3538
New York -- Right in the nick of time for the first day of New York City's Advertising Week, struggling web portal AOL Inc., made headway to take a jump on attention getting news with its latest endeavor to build a better advertising business. AOL said it has officially unveiled a new online advertising system codenamed -- "Project Devil," which essentially seeks to blow up what Web pages and Web advertising have been about until now, its top executive told Reuters on Monday.
AOL Acquires Mobile App Software Firm Rally Up
- 02 September 2010
- Deepti Dhaval
- Hits: 1790
New York -- Seeking to boost its mobile offerings like its fellow portal Yahoo, AOL too is tempted to adapt a new reality where mobile is only going to become increasingly important. The struggling company on Tuesday said that it has acquired Rally Up, a budding creator of the Rally Up and FacePlant social networking apps for the iPhone and iPad that lets users share their locations with select friends, for an undisclosed amount.
AOL Gives Parents Tool To Monitor On Kids' Social Networking Activities With Safe Social
- 25 August 2010
- Jitesh Pillai
- Hits: 3129
Los Angeles -- As kids flock to the internet for social networking, educational tools and more; safety on the web is becoming a concern for parents. Have you ever wish that you could become an invisible being in your house to watch for what your kids post on Facebook and other social media sites? Well AOL, in association with SocialShield, is launching AOL SafeSocial, a $9.99-per-month service that empower parents to monitor their kids' online activities without having to be a “friend.”
AOL has disclosed the results from a recent survey, conducted by Nielsen, about parenting and social networking. The survey discovered that over half of children do not know all of their “friends” personally.
The positive results of companies like ReputationDefender, SocialShield and Safety Web are showing that now, more than ever, parents are looking to spend money on tools to help protect their kids on the web.
AOL has recently unleashed a new product from SocialShield, a startup that provides parents with a “360 degree view of their child's social networking life”. This includes a report card of overall social networking activity and offers a web application that identifies various security risks on social networks.
Ask.com Reinvents Itself With User Base To Offer Better Q. & A. Service
- 28 July 2010
- Abhijeet Kashyap
- Hits: 1781
San Francisco -- Jeeves may have vanished into thin air, but according to Ask.com, he is anything but forgotten. Ask.com, which has experimented with minimal success to transform itself into a search engine on par with those of Google and Microsoft, is making a shift into new direction and attempting to reinvent its search strategy around a more social experience, including an improved question-and-answer offering, rather than traditional search results.
Ask.com, the Internet search engine division of IAC/InterActive Corp., was historically an excellent portal where users could submit search queries in the form of a question, but now the company hopes to tap the knowledge of its end users to provide better answers for people who ask questions at its website, according to Tony Gentile, Ask.com's senior vice president of product management.
Ask.com is rolling out a new Q&A service that directs questions from users to members of its online community, as the firm struggles to make any impact on the search market. Ask's decision comes as firms such as Google are paying more attention to so-called “social search,” in an attempt to capture new growth areas as the traditional search ad market slows. Ask controls only slightly more than 3% of the US search market and its share is declining.
AOL Releases New HTML5 Mobile Portal And Picks Android Applications
- 23 July 2010
- Arpana Roy
- Hits: 3143
New York -- Ignoring the iPhone in favor of the “top-of-the-line smartphone platform,” AOL Inc. on Thursday unleashed a new smartphone portal, m.aol.com. Additionally, the company has just jiggled its focus on the Android operating system with the release of 2 new exclusive app for Android devices before the iPhone.
At least for AOL, Apple's iPhone is losing its charm in the smartphone market, as sales of handsets powered by Google's Android operating system skyrocket.
The smartphone portal is specifically configured to be able to deliver content on iPhone and Android browsers, providing a touch-driven interface that allows for easy browsing through articles and content, and additionally, the new portal delivers location-based content linked to local weather, movie, traffic and other updates; and an application directory. The site specifically is optimized for phones that support HTML5. There is also an app directory for users to find mobile apps, and it supports video content.
AOL Throws Social Networking Site Bebo For Scrap
- 18 June 2010
- Jitesh Pillai
- Hits: 2332
Los Angeles -- AOL, on Thursday announced that it had finally managed to jettison Bebo to Criterion Capital Partners, a private equity fund based in Los Angeles, for an undisclosed sum, after acquiring it for $850 million just two years ago.
Back in 2000, AOL's $164 billion acquisition of Time Warner is widely remembered as one of the most catastrophic deals in corporate history. By comparison, AOL's acquisition of the social networking site Bebo for $850 million two years ago was tiny. But ultimately, it proved to be as much of a fiasco.
The deal was validated this afternoon, though no details of the price were revealed.
Although the sale price was not disclosed, but it is rumored that Los Angeles-based private equity fund Criterion Capital Partners LLC of Studio City California, snapped up the site for US$10 million or less, while others quote anonymous sources describing the price as an “exceptionally uninspiring number.” This is an interesting location -- a suburb of LA nowhere near Silicon Valley.
AOL Sells Off ICQ To Russia's Digital Sky For $187.5 Million
- 29 April 2010
- Farukh Shaikh
- Hits: 2874
New York -- Twelve years after pulling along the Israeli instant-messaging company ICQ for a hefty price of $400 million, AOL Inc., the Internet advertising company spun off from Time Warner Inc., yesterday announced it has agreed to sell its ICQ instant messaging service to the Russian Internet holding company Digital Sky Technologies, at a huge loss for $187.5 million.
Rumors has been spreading for months about AOL's plan to dispose of ICQ, which was established as an online messaging technology startup in 1996 by the Israeli company Mirabilis, and AOL purchased the parent company in 1998.
Despite failing to keep the glow in the United States to different companies such as MSN Messenger and AIM, ICQ continues to be the most favorite IM service in Russia and other smaller international markets.
“The acquisition of ICQ is a strategic enhancement of our business in Russia and Eastern Europe. ICQ's long-standing brand name and its sizable loyal customer base together represent a very attractive opportunity to further strengthen our position in the region,” says Yuri Milner, Chief Executive Officer of DST.
The disposal came as AOL's first-quarter profit declined by 58 percent on slumping advertising sales and agreed to sell an instant-messaging service for $187.5 million.
AOL Unveils “Ad Desk” A Self-Serve Display Ad Management Tool
- 22 April 2010
- Nisha Gandhi
- Hits: 4039
Los Angeles -- The ex-Google execs running AOL are looking to make display advertising a little more Google-like, and following the tag-line -- AOL has introduced the beta version of the Advertising.com “Ad Desk,” a new campaign management platform aimed at small and mid-sized agencies and advertisers.
The Web services company formulated the platform after soliciting feedback from brand and direct response advertising agencies and marketers in recent months.
The Ad Desk service would empower display advertisers to take a more active role in their online ad campaigns. They will be able to access information (such as demographics and audience size) on AOL's various properties, and make decisions on how and when campaigns should run -- without having to go through AOL's sales force.
“Transparency and control are the main attributes of online advertising,” said Jeff Levick, EVP, AOL Advertising. “Providing clients with a greater level of personalized control over digital marketing campaigns is paramount as organizations continue to look for innovative ways to promote their brands and evaluate their ROI when planning campaigns.”
AOL Says Adieu To Bebo Social Networking Site
- 07 April 2010
- Abhijeet Kashyap
- Hits: 4651
San Francisco -- Barely two years after AOL acquired the social network site Bebo for a whopping US$850 million, the company has now decided to either sell or shut down the ailing service by the end of next month, as the company scuttles a stalled effort to capitalize on demand for online social networking, according to company spokeswoman Tricia Primrose.
AOL Disposes Of Affiliate Network Buy.at
- 02 March 2010
- Abhijeet Kashyap
- Hits: 2833
New York -- AOL's once-aspiring Platform-A network has been going through a lot of changes lately after splitting with sugar daddy Time Warner. The company, like Yahoo, taking stock of its less profitable assets has announced the sale of “Buy.at,” the affiliate marketing firm it acquired two years ago, to London-based Digital Window for an undisclosed sum.
The buyer, London-based affiliate merchant Digital Window, which owns subsidiaries including Affiliate Window, one of the UK's biggest affiliate networks, said it plans to incorporate the buy.at network with its existing affiliate business, AffiliateWindow, price comparison site ShopWindow and content customizer ContentWindow for customers in the UK, USA and Scandinavia.
AOL Partners With Facebook, Integrates Lifestream To AIM
- 11 February 2010
- Nisha Gandhi
- Hits: 3626
San Francisco -- Just a day after Google integrated its Gmail with a social networking feature, the newly-independent AOL Inc. unfurled a beta version of its AIM instant messaging client that connects with Facebook's Chat service. The partnership that will allow millions of AIM users to send and receive instant messages to their Facebook friends, and chat across the Web environments who also become part of AIM's “Buddy” lists.
The announcement emphasizes the growing competition between Google, the Internet's leading company, and Facebook, which recently passed AOL to rank third in Web traffic.
AOL said in a blog post it is adding its Lifestream social networking feature, launched last year empowering AIM users to aggregate updates and feeds from social networking sites including Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube and AOL's own Bebo.
AOL Snatches Another Googler Into Its Fold
- 05 February 2010
- Deepti Dhava
- Hits: 2347
New York -- Ever since Tim Armstrong took over leadership at AOL as CEO from his earlier job managing the Mountain View company's sales department, AOL has been pretty successful in poaching former Google colleagues to help with the overhaul of the trouble plagued Internet company. The media company has poached another high-profile Google executive “David Eun,” the executive who functioned as Google's ambassador to Hollywood's television and film community, to become president of AOL Media and Studios as it seeks to forge a viable content business out of the ashes of the disastrous AOL Time Warner merger.