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February 03 2012
alexi2
Silicon Valley absolutely, positively doesn't need a nap room because in theory we don't sleep, let alone nap (and if we do need to nap -- like in an emergency -- we take that shiz home, far far away from hungry competitors!). Please Aol Mr. Sr. Facilities Manager, take that money and buy us a bunch of Diet Coke to drink late at night or that great beef jerky we used to have or a copyediting
October 19 2011
AOL HD
TechCrunch TV is now really TechCrunch TV. When TCTV launched last year, the focus was on viewing our videos on the computer. Not on TV. Ok, we called it "TechCrunch TV" because it sounded a lot better than "TechCrunch Video". But today, we are launching on the AOL HD platform and you can find us on your connected TV set. Our videos are live on Roku, Boxee, Divx and Yahoo Connected TV platforms. Together, these platforms reach over 12 million devices. And that number is growing. Don't be surprised if more platforms get added as well. (AOL, the owner of TechCrunch, didn't want me to say anything about that. Oh well.)
September 06 2011
Screen Shot 2011-09-06 at 12.18.57 AM
This is a post I never thought I'd have to write. Unfortunately, I do. And the worst part about it is that it should be Michael Arrington writing this post, not me. But he can't. TechCrunch is on the precipice. As soon as tomorrow, Mike may be thrown out of the company he founded. Or he may not. No one knows. And if he is, he will be replaced by — well, again, no one knows. No one knows much of anything. Certainly no one at TechCrunch. This site is about to change forever and we're in the total fucking dark. I've been able to piece together little bits of information here and there, and it's not looking good. Hence, this post.
August 09 2011
aollogo
Internet access, content and online advertising company AOL (which also owns TechCrunch) this morning reported its earnings for the second quarter of the year. AOL reported a net loss of $11.8 million, compared with a year-ago loss of a little over $1 billion, which had included a major goodwill impairment charge and higher restructuring costs. Total revenue came in at $542.2 million, down 8 percent compared to Q2 2010. Subscription revenue took another - albeit expected - hit with a 23 percent decrease.
August 05 2011
monopoly-money-748981
I've said this before, but working at AOL is my first experience working at a "big" company. I've watched, mostly with amusement, as a Dilbert cartoon has come to life around me. Some of the policies and bureaucracy are useful (I'll think of some examples, just give me a second). Some are hilarious (forced drinking events). Some are really annoying. For example, every couple of weeks I get an email titled "AOL Standards of Business Conduct Training" with the demand "As a new employee, you are required to complete one hour of web-based training on the Standards of Business Conduct (SBCs)." The only problem is that I need to have access to the AOL network to complete the training, and they've never given me access so that there's an information barrier between me and the company. But there's one weird policy that really stands out. AOL is absolutely crazed about questioning employee expenses. Our CEO Heather Harde deals with the brunt of the pain involved in getting expenses approved. But I've dealt with my fair share, too.
July 25 2011
More Musical Chairs At AOL
Two years ago, Tim Armstrong replaced the ad chief he inherited, Greg Coleman, with one of his former Google lieutenants, Jeff Levick. The musical chairs still has not stopped. In a memo sent out to employees today (see below), Armstrong announced that Levick wil be stepping down, to be replaced by another trusted lieutenant, Ned Brody, who will take the new position of Chief Revenue Officer and President of AOL Advertising. He was previously COO of the media, advertising, and commerce group, as well as the president of AOL’s Paid Services group before taking over the Advertising.com group.
Most of the shakeup is happening in the sales organization, which is getting five new SVPs under Brody, who is charged with delivering consistent growth in advertising revenues and pushing AOL’s premium ad products such as Project Devil. Last quarter, total advertising revenues were still declining by 11 percent, although there was a ray of hope in that display advertising saw a 4 percent jump. Brody needs to keep growing the advertising business before older revenue streams dry up.
Meanwhile, AOL’s head of PR, Lauren Hurvitz, and head of HR, Kathy Andreasen, are also leaving. All of these changes are happening ahead of AOL’s second quarter earnings, which won’t be announced until August 9. (The stock is down a bit on the news).
On the editorial side, AOL now has five new general managers, including our own Heather Harde (who heads up AOL Tech, which includes TechCrunch and Engadget). At AOL, the GMs run the business, the editors run the editorial (so, for instance, Arianna Huffington, is stil the editor in chief). Those five GMs are:
• AOL.com – Chris Grosso
• Huffington Post – Brian Kaminsky
• Entertainment – Kerry Trainor (e.g. Moviefone, AOL Music)
• Marketplace – Jay Kirsch (e.g., AOL Autos, Finance, and AOL Industry)
• Tech – Heather Harde (e.g., TechCrunch, Engadget)
AOL is also trying to focus its business and brands. According to Armstrong’s memo, AOL’s growth strategies are now centered around:
1. Leading the digital content space
2. Leading the brand advertising space
3. Leading the premium video platform space
4. Leading the local content and advertising space
5. Leading the online membership services space
That is still probably two things too many. Investors are losing patience with AOL, which so far is not participating in the broad rally in online advertising revenues the rest of the industry is enjoying (well, except Yahoo, which isn’t doing so great either). At this point, management changes won’t really matter unless they are followed up by results.
Full memo below:
AOLers –
As we continue the comeback of AOL we are focused on growth. We have a few announcements today that will make the company simpler, faster and stronger. Our strategy remains clear and consistent and our execution and operational clarity have improved. We have stabilized the foundation of the company and our future is about executing our growth strategies focused on:
1. Leading the digital content space
2. Leading the brand advertising space
3. Leading the premium video platform space
4. Leading the local content and advertising space
5. Leading the online membership services spaceAs we have focused our growth in this simplified product portfolio, we are now combining our advertising sales organization with our advertising network and products organization. We are not watching trends in the advertising business, we are creating them. Project Devil has traction and will help lead the brand space online. In the video space, we have gone from being out of the race to becoming one of the largest forces for digital video distribution.
The first announcement is a global structural change to our advertising business. We are promoting Ned Brody to the new position of Chief Revenue Officer and President of AOL Advertising. Ned will oversee AOL’s global O&O advertising, global network business, sales, and advertising and publishing products. There are three goals we are hoping to accomplish with Ned in this new position. The first is a unified premium strategy for advertisers and publishers. The second is consistent growth in advertising spend across all our properties and networks. The third is a more rigorous approach to advertising and publishing system design. This will allow us to connect Project Devil and our Premium Brand Formats to the O&O properties as well as the network.
In addition to our new CRO position, we are also announcing expanded leadership roles for five world-class leaders in our sales organization. Tim Castelli, Wendy MacGregor, Tim Richards, and Jim Norton will be promoted to SVP and Michael O’Connor will be promoted to VP, Head of Sales Operations. These leaders along with Don Kennedy, SVP of Advertising.com Sales, and Chris Heine, SVP of Advertising Operations will form our sales leadership team and join Ned’s management team.
As a result of this global change, Jeff Levick will be leaving AOL after a six week transition period. Jeff undertook one of the toughest jobs in the Internet space when he joined AOL. In the past two years, he developed a world-class leadership team, led the industry toward the future of premium formats for brand advertising, and helped lead a game-changing shift in perception and quality of the AOL advertising experience. Jeff is a friend to many of us and we know we will see big things from him in his future career. We have been working closely together on the design of the sales structure and we both believe it will positively impact results for our team and our customers.
The second announcement we are making is a streamlined GM structure reporting directly to me, overseeing the connection between content and monetization. The GM organization will allow us to profitably manage our investments in media and optimize the yield opportunities with traffic and revenue. We have already put the following GM leaders in place:
• AOL.com – Chris Grosso
• Huffington Post – Brian Kaminsky
• Entertainment – Kerry Trainor (e.g. Moviefone, AOL Music)
• Marketplace – Jay Kirsch (e.g., AOL Autos, Finance, and AOL Industry)
• Tech – Heather Harde (e.g., TechCrunch, Engadget)Our third announcement is aimed at streamlining our corporate operations. Artie Minson, CFO of AOL and President of Paid Services, will now take on managing both our international planning and our Google search relationship, which is an important partnership on many levels. As part of Artie’s new responsibilities, he will be transitioning HR, Corporate Communications, and Marketing back to me.
We will be consolidating all marketing functions and the corporate communications team into a single organization run by Maureen Sullivan. Lauren Hurvitz will transition out of AOL as part of the consolidation. Kathy Andreasen is also transitioning out of the company. Lauren and Kathy have been big champions for AOL and trusted members of the management team. Sandy Mott will assume the role of interim head of HR. We will also be opening up a search for a Global Head of HR.
The future for AOL is getting brighter and we are on the path of returning AOL to growth. I care about our team and our AOL brand, our consumers and customers, and our long-term outcome – the announcements today have this at the core.
We have very clear operating plans for the second half of the year as we reviewed on the all-hands call a few weeks ago and we review detailed updates every week, and in some cases daily. We won’t be hitting the pause button this week, we’ll be on fast-forward.
Photo credit: Makelessnoise
July 12 2011
Play For iPhone Coming Tomorrow, AOL Pitches Me Over Instagram
Back in March, we noted that the mobile-first group inside of AOL was pushing forward with a pretty nice new music app called “Play”. The timing was good, they released it just as SXSW was kicking off. Unfortunately, it was Android-only — meaning myself and millions of others were unlikely to use it and instead would favor something like rival Soundtracking. Well, tomorrow Play is finally coming for iPhone.
As far as I can tell, Play for iPhone looks great. But “looks“ is the keyword. I haven’t actually used the app myself. Instead, I’ve only seen it because AOL decided to pitch it to me over Instagram. Yes, knowing my no-email stance, AOL smartly found me on another network I’m always on and highly engaged with. Well played — and smart. AOL has been pitching their app as a sort of “Instagram for music”. And that seems to be working for them so far.
AOL’s senior director of mobile projects, Sol Lipman, prepared and sent me (publicly, of course) the following set of Instagram images to show off and explain the new app.
Again, the app looks great. Can’t wait to try it out.
thesolster: So @parislemon we’re launching PLAY for iPhone tomorrow – this is the music tab.
thesolster: And this @parislemon is the PLAY tab – it is rad.
thesolster: the feed @parislemon, rules
thesolster: hey @parislemon look at this awesomeness here
thesolster: We have a full-on local music player @parislemon
thesolster: Hope you enjoyed it @parislemon – for everyone else sorry to clutter your stream, just trying to take care of business
June 22 2011
Touchdown Called Back: Fleaflicker Founder Buys Back Fantasy Sports Site From AOL
Over three years ago, we reported that AOL had acquired the New Jersey-based fantasy sports site Fleaflicker. It seemed like a touchdown for 26-year-old founder Ori Schwartz. Now it’s looking more like a touchdown that was just called back.
AOL has alerted members of the service today that Schwartz has bought back Fleaflicker. As of July 22, AOL will no longer be in control of the site which has dwindled under the control of our parent company. “While we love Fleaflicker (and our users love Fleaflicker), we wanted to find a home for the product where it can receive more love and attention,” is the subtle middle finger in their FAQ.
The good news is that the service now has a new lease of life. The newly created Fleaflicker LLC will continue to operate things without interruption. And all user data will remain intact without users have to do anything (those who do not wish to have their data transfered to the newly-owned service can opt-out). It will also remain free.
The bad news is that the timing of the transition could not be any worse. Every day, it’s looking more and more likely that the NFL lockout will put at least a part of the upcoming season in jeopardy. The NBA also faces a lockout this coming season. This will all be very problematic for fantasy sports in the coming months, to say the least.
Still, let’s hope that Fleaflicker can tap back into their bootstrapped ways and get back to the point that they were at in 2006, when Mike called them the “better” fantasy sports site.
Below, the message to users:
Dear AOL Fleaflicker User:
Fleaflicker has been acquired by its original founder, Ori Schwartz. As of July 22, 2011 AOL will no longer operate the Fleaflicker service.
The good news is that Ori’s company, Fleaflicker LLC, will continue to operate the service without interruption. All your fantasy teams and account information (including your login E-mail) will be transferred to Fleaflicker LLC. Please review the Fleaflicker LLC Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
Nothing is required of you to continue playing fantasy sports for free on Fleaflicker. However, if you do not want your data to be transferred, you may opt out by clicking here before July 22, 2011. If you do not opt out by this date, we will automatically begin the transition.
Sincerely,
The AOL Fleaflicker Team
For more information on the transfer of your account, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions area at www.fleaflicker.com/transition-faq.
May 23 2011
AOL CEO Tim Armstrong: Paid Content Can Work
TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington took the stage today to interview AOL CEO Tim Armstrong. It was actually at TechCrunch Disrupt New York last year where Armstrong first approached Arrington about buying TechCrunch. We all know how that worked out.
Armstrong and Arrington touched on a variety of subjects, including AOL’s agressive content strategy. While AOL’s content has remained free, Armstrong does seem to think that a paid content model can work. “It’s a matter of how you do it…but I’m a long term believer in paid content as a strategy.” As he cautions, AOL’s news content doesn’t have a price right now, and Armstrong didn’t reveal any future plans for a paywall but it’s certainly interesting to see that he isn’t totally against the strategy.
Armstrong’s stance is certainly interesting considering other media companies’ recent moves towards adopting paywall, such as The New York Times.
As for more acquisitions, Armstrong told Arrington that there were five to ten companies he interested in acquiring right now, but no acquisitions are imminent.
And on AOL’s overall success as a company considering its new strategy, “it’s a come back,” Armstrong explains. “We’re clear on what we are doing and no competitor who is going to get in the way of us.”
May 06 2011
AOL Launches “Incredibly Easy” Video Chat Service Internally; We Launch It Externally
Earlier today, AOL’s Head of AIM Products Jason Shellen sent an email to the entire company urging people not to share its contents with people outside of the company. Even though we’re a part of AOL, we didn’t get that email. Well, that is until someone was kind enough to leak it to us. Hey, we are not outside of the company so that’s fair right? And since we didn’t technically get the email, I have no problem sharing it.
Anyway.
AOL is on the verge of launching a “shiny new video chat product dubbed ‘AV’”. And it actually looks pretty good. It’s video chat, but super-simple. You don’t need an account to use it. You don’t need anything (besides, sadly, Flash installed on your computer). You hit the homepage, start a chat, get a link, and send that to friends. Up to four people can chat at once.
I’ve been playing around with it for a bit. It is super simple and well done. Aside from video chatting, you can text chat and it overlays on your stream in a nice way. You can also make your stream wider and freeze it.
Still in beta for now, Shellen notes that it “represents a lot of hard work by the AIM team over the last few months.” He also says that it’s the first of “several” new AIM launches coming soon. All will be web-focused.
The video chat play is a smart one. This is a space that is heating up really quickly. Apple has FaceTime across their devices, Chatroulette is supposedly making a comeback, Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker are back at work on Supyo (yes, Mike is an investor), and even Skype is back in the news about possible partnerships with Facebook or Google for their technology.
Speaking of Google, we’ve been hearing for months that they’re working on something similar to AV. And I suspect we’ll be hearing more about that shortly.
The point of Shellen’s email today was to share AV internally with AOLers to test it out. But we’re gonna do him one better. We’re going to share the link here so all of you can help test it out! Here she is!
AOL is hosting a product summit at their west coast HQ in Palo Alto next week. I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about AV there. For now, enjoy.
Below, Shellen’s email to the troops. Reached for comment, Shellen refused to and seemed annoyed. Hey, it was either us publishing this or Business Insider, right? We’re brothers!
People of AOL,
AIM is proud to present you with a super secret internal launch (shhh!) of our shiny new video chat product dubbed “AV”. Still in beta, AV is a major step forward that represents a lot of hard work by the AIM team over the last few months.
AV is incredibly easy to use: Visit the home page, start a chat, get a link to send out, and you and up to three other people are video chatting in no time. There’s no account or login required, so there’s very little barrier to entry. Plus… it’s FUN!
As you may know, this is the first of several substantial new AIM launches and the first to represent our shift in focus to better web software. While you might have been one of our early testers of the entire new AIM effort, this is just the video portion and we’ll be in touch soon as the rest rolls out.
What I’m asking of you is to:
1. Use the product by checking out the link below, only with fellow Aol team members.
2. Give us feedback and bug reports through the “Feedback” link in the product.
3. DO NOT SHARE THIS WITH ANYONE OUTSIDE AOL!
4. Sorry, my “caps lock” key got stuck on during number 3. But seriously, don’t do it.Enjoy: http://aim.com/av
Sincerely,
JASON SHELLEN
Head of AIM Products
P: XXX.XXX.XXXX AIM: XXXXXXXX
Palo Alto | NYC | DullesPS: To the ACG team for whom this email will seem oddly familiar, thank you for your help in providing feedback on our alpha version over the past few weeks. Please give us another spin now that we’ve worked out the kinks and keep giving us feedback so we can continue to improve.
May 04 2011
Tim Armstrong Gives Some Project Devil Details
AOL CEO Tim Armstrong is betting on the devil. Project Devil, that is. Those are the ad units on AOL properties (including TechCrunch), and now on Hearst sites as well, that take up all the ad spots with one campaign. Instead of 14 different ads on a page, the same space if all given to one advertiser. They are designed to be more engaging as well via the addition of maps, videos, and other interactive elements. In today’s first quarter earnings call, Armstrong told analysts: “On every single benchmark, Devil Ads perform better.”
He then broke down some stats: compared to “industry benchmarks” (i.e. run-of-the-mill display ads), AOL is seeing 6.4X the engagement rate with Project Devil ads than standard ones (10 percent versus 1.5 percent engagement), 1.9X the click-through rate, and 3.4X the time spent with the ads for those people who do engage (47 seconds versus 14 seconds). Project Devil video ads are played twice as much as other video ads.
If ads are AOL’s monetization engine, then Project Devil is the turbocharger. “Devil is currently a very small part of our inventory,” Armstrong says, “but a growing part of the revenue picture. We can use less inventory and get a bigger bang for the buck.”
AOL needs as much bang as it can get. In the first quarter, AOL was still fighting a 17 percent decline in total revenues, with the subscription business down 24 percent, and search and contextual ads down another 21 percent. But there was one bright spot. Display advertising looks like it may have turned the corner for AOL, with 4 percent revenue growth overall and 11 percent growth domestically. Project Devil is a part of that.
AOL eliminated 55 percent of its ad impressions by cleaning up its pages, and revenues still grew. The flip side of that is attracting a bigger audience on the content side. AOL si now the No. 2 online video publisher in terms of unique viewers. The Huffington Post alone grew 27 percent in unique visitors during the quarter from December, and Patch grew more than 100 percent off a small base (total unique visitors for Patch is now 6.5 million). The locally-targeted ads on Patch also do better than normal display, but that is another story and Patch still has a long way to go.
AOL’s new initiatives with Project Devil, Patch, and video are promising starts. Now Armstrong needs to scale them up.
AOL’s Q1: Display Ad Revenues Finally Going Up, But …
Our parent company AOL has just released its quarterly earnings for Q1 2011, and it’s a mixed bag (again).
Revenue came in at $551.4 million, which is better than most analysts had anticipated – the company was expected to earn $0.17 per share on revenues of $536.35 million.
Notably, global display advertising revenue grew 4 percent, marking the first quarter of year-over-year growth since Q4 2007 (!). Domestic display grew 11 percent in the quarter, or 6 percent excluding acquisitions.
Overall advertising revenue declined $40.6 million compared to Q1 2010, mostly due to lower third-party network revenue associated with shutdowns and reduced operations in Europe, in addition to the absence of revenue from Bebo and ICQ (which AOL sold in 2010).
Leaving aside those AOL-implemented initiatives, advertising revenue was essentially flat for the quarter, reflecting declines in search and contextual revenue but growth in display revenue and increases in Third Party Network revenue.
Among the notable things that happened at AOL during the first quarter: the company closed the acquisitions of goviral and The Huffington Post and aligned all of its content under the newly formed AOL Huffington Post Media Group, with Arianna Huffington as editor-in-chief.
April 05 2011
Play, AOL’s Android Music Sharing App, Hits 250,000 Downloads In Three Weeks
When a mobile app gets more than a hundred thousand downloads in its first few weeks, that is usually a good thing. Instagram hit 100,000 in a week, and music-sharing app Soundtracking got there in two weeks. But another music-sharing app, Play by AOL, is right up there with 250,000 downloads in three weeks.
Play is very similar to Soundtracking. It lets you share snippets of songs, along with album art or photos, with your friends via Twitter, Facebook, or the in-app network. Play might even have more downloads than Soundtracking, which is getting far more buzz. But what’s interesting about Play is that it launched first on Android, and is not yet available on the iPhone. Still, it’s getting a decent amount of traction.
Winamp for Android, another AOL mobile music app, saw 500,000 downloads its first month in private beta, and is now well over 3 million. (TechCrunch is also owned by AOL). And games like Angry Birds have seen millions of Android downloads as well. This kind of traction is yet more evidence that Android has arrived as a viable alternative to the iPhone for app developers.
April 04 2011
Bought By AOL Alongside Patch, Going Will Soon Be Gone
Back in June of 2009, then-new CEO Tim Armstrong made two acquisitions to move AOL into the local space: Patch and Going. While the verdict is still very much out on Patch, it’s clear that AOL is at least committed to it. Going? Not so much.
Going will “going away” (they made the joke, not me) on May 1, 2011. The reason? “AOL’s refocusing”, the team explains in an email sent to users today.
We’ve previously covered Going a number of times over the years. More recently, AOL had turned it into a new-style check-in service that focused on events (odd given that earlier today, Facebook unveiled an app update that does the same basic thing). At the time, Foursquare was starting to get some buzz, but it was far from clear who the winner in the space would be. We can definitely say now that it will not be Going.
You’ll be able to grab you information off of Going before the May deadline. After that, going.com will apparently be part of both Moviefone and Patch somehow.
Below, find the email sent out:
First off, we’d like to thank you and the Going community for your support and your feedback over the years. With your contributions we built a very special site that has helped make the city a place to live in to the fullest and has gotten the word out about thousands of great local happenings, artists, and places. We can’t thank you enough!
As part of AOL’s refocusing, Going will be going away as of Sunday, May 1st, 2011.
We wanted to give you as much notice as possible so that you can grab anything you’ve contributed ahead of that date. Please save out any of your messages, events, photos, profile information and other personal content you’d like before May 1st.
After that date, Going.com will have a new home in Moviefone and Patch which have movie and event listings at a national level.
Hopefully that will ease the transition and help you continue to discover great things to do around town!
Please note that the Going mobile site and iPhone and Facebook applications will be discontinued as well.
Feel free to reply to this email if you have any questions, and thanks again.
Sincerely, Roy Rodenstein, Going co-Founder, and the Going Team
March 23 2011
AOL HuffPost To Freelancers: We Want You On Staff, But Real Journalists Only Need Apply
In the reorganization of AOL and the Huffington Post into the Huffington Post Media Group, the company succumbed to layoffs and consolidated AOL news sites into the Huffington Post, folding or shutting down thirty properties. While a number of staffers were let go in this round of layoffs, what about the freelancers? It has been speculated that their time at AOL may be over, though it has remained largely unclear as to how freelancers for the properties in question will officially be treated going forward under the new media group.
Today, Peter Goodman, editor for business and technology news for the Huffington Post, held a conference call for freelance business writers for AOL properties, and we were fortunate enough to get the inside scoop on what was discussed from a freelancer (who shall remain anonymous) on the call.
One of the major points Goodman tried to make, says our source, is that AOL HuffPost wants freelancers who are professional journalists (not bloggers) to become staffers. Goodman encouraged all of the call attendees to apply for full-time jobs with the Huffington Post Media Group and reiterated that the new group is “ultimately about greater journalism.” Of course, we know that AOL HuffPost has been on a journalistic hiring spree of late.
One interesting quote from Goodman, “We can’t replace professional journalism with an ad hoc blogging arrangement….we don’t want to confuse professional journalists with bloggers.” Non-professional journalists (perhaps bloggers churning out content for the AOL Way?) from what we heard, are being encouraged to freelance.
AOL also wants to staff up its main offices in New York, LA and Dulles, and create large newsrooms of these professional journalists. If you don’t want to move to these locales, AOL is bullish on these freelancers joining hyperlocal news platform Patch.
The HuffPost business desk will move into the AOL 770 Broadway offices on Monday, and staffers have already been notified that they should be packing up their belongings for the move to the new office. Goodman says AOL HuffPost wants to create a large newsroom where all staffers are sitting in one area.
Goodman also made sure to caution freelancers that the integration is not happening immediately and that the media group is still evaluating each property to determine the best way to proceed in terms of hiring. He said that over the next three weeks, editors of every site will be meeting with the HuffPost to determine what the ratio of staffers and freelancers should be for each property.
While this all seems great for some freelancers, the picture Goodman painted isn’t so rosy. Many freelancers who had already applied for HuffPost jobs weeks ago have not received a response fron editors, says our source.
Photo Credit/Flickr/VictoriaPeckham
March 15 2011
SoundTracking Sings The Praises Of “Mobile-First” And “From-The-Ground-Up Social”
Late last week, we first wrote about SoundTracking, a new iPhone application from Schematic Labs that allows you to easily share not only the music you’re listening to, but the music you’re listening to in the context that you’re listening to it in. Yesterday at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas, I got a chance to sit down with co-founder Steve Jang for his thoughts on the app and the space.
Jang talks about the rise of the “mobile-first” experience, noting that phones are good enough now to match the websites that have been built for years now. And in many ways, the experience is better because mobile is so personal. Jang talks about his inspiration for SoundTracking when he was traveling around Europe and wanting to share the music he was listening to on the go, but in a way beyond text.
He also talks a bit about the competitive landscape out there right now. With the mobile photo-sharing apps like Instagram, PicPlz, and Path all getting a lot of buzz, everyone is seeking to find the next genre that will hit. Schematic Labs aren’t the only ones betting on music experiences, AOL is as well with Play. Jang thinks that’s great, because it’s a space that probably should have existed earlier and competition will drive it forward.
Jang also talks a bit about the existing players out there like Shazam and SoundHound and his love for them. At the same time, they weren’t built “from the ground up” to be social. This is something Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is also fond of talking about — that social isn’t something you can just tack on.
Watch the full interview above. And find SoundTracking in the App Store here.
AOL Asks Us If We Can Tone It Down
Earlier this week I interviewed Duncan Jones and Jake Gyllenhaal at SXSW, at the press junket for their movie The Source Code. While the film doesn’t have a huge tech angle other than the title, I thought it might be good video content for TCTV—the intersection of Hollywood and Silicon Valley is fascinating, and the movie industry is one of the last to get disrupted. It’s always interesting to see how old school media players are aware of the monumental shifts going on in their own industry.
In any case I thought that the way The Source Code and Summit Entertainment were trying to target the tech press and, through us, our more social media savvy readers was an intriguing marketing strategy—and an angle! I wrote my “Jake Gyllenhaal Movie ‘The Source Code’ Markets Itself To Techies“ post about that instead of turning it into a free ad for the film.
Apparently, the post was not enough of a blowjob for Summit, and they let it be known to the AOL person at Moviefone who hooked us up with them in the first place. This morning I received this email from that Moviefone/AOL Television representative:
Hey Alexia,
Hope you’re having a good time at SxSW and that it’s not been too crazy busy for you!
First wanted to thank you for covering Source Code/attending the party, etc. But also wanted to raise a concern that Summit had about the piece that ran. They felt it was a little snarky and wondered if any of the snark can be toned down? I wasn’t able to view the video interviews but I think their issue is just with some of the text. Let me know if you’re able to take another look at it and make any edits. I know of course that TechCrunch has its own voice and editorial standards, so if you have good reasons not to change anything that’s fine, I just need to get back to Summit with some sort of information. Let me know.
Thanks!
Now this isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my inbox, nor is it the first time someone has taken issue with the quirks of my writing style, but it deserves a re-publish here for the following reasons:
a) We’ve made a loose promise that if Aol ever asked us if we could change our coverage in any way, that we’d immediately publish it. Moviefone is part of AOL, so here you go.
b) It highlights a key difference between the Hollywood and Silicon Valley media ecosystem. Granted, it’s common for the press to trade access for positive coverage across all industries (eh hem, Apple), but nowhere is it more prevalent than in the stratified environs of the movie and television industry. It’s almost like a petri dish for media manipulation.
c) What I didn’t understand when writing my candid opinion about the movie and its marketing strategy was that Summit thought that by inviting me to their party they were basically buying a puff piece. The thought never crossed my mind, mainly because I cover startups, and startups, unlike Hollywood stars, want to talk to the press.
The most ridiculous part about this whole episode is that the post in question wasn’t even that “snarky,” whatever the hell that means. I mean it’s not like I wrote “Movie Studio Creates ‘Game’ In Order To Get People To Spam Their Friends On Facebook” in the headline.
The issue is simply that Summit thinks it can pressure us, through an AOL sister site, into making a balanced report more glowing. And while it’s inappropriate, it’s not surprising. What is surprising, and sad, is that Moviefone/AOL actually tried to comply with their request and asked us to change our post. It’s not just sad, it’s wrong.
So no AOL, and Moviefone, and Summit, I will absolutely not tone down my snark. This is Silicon Valley, not Hollywood.
Image via Squid Pro
March 11 2011
AOL’s Mobile-First Group Steps To The Stage With Play, An Instagram For Music
As you know, we’re now owned by AOL. And while it’s a big company, you’d think we’d be able to find out some tidbits of information about secret projects they’re working on. Nope. Sometimes it seems as if they’re fine with anyone else finding out what they’re working on as long as it’s not us. Take the “mobile-first” group for example. We heard about their tablet reader thing when everyone else did. And now we’re hearing about their secret music-sharing app, Play, when everyone else is.
Well, at least it’s a good idea. It’s essentially Instagram for music. At least that’s how Senior Director of Mobile Projects Sol Lipman pitches it to me.
“Music is the fabric of our lives,” Lipman says in a sincere way that almost makes it sound as if it’s not a level-5 cliche alert. “We wanted to build an app that allowed you to share it in a really interesting way,” he continues. So they teamed up with the AOL Music team to build Play, an app debuting today for Android devices.
And it’s good timing. SXSW kicks off today. And the festival is heavily integrated into the app. For example, AOL has secured some exclusive streaming rights from shows at SXSW that you can watch from within the app. They also have Spinner’s MP3 of the day, and full-length previews from AOL’s CD Listening Party.
But the key to the app is the sharing of the music that you already know you like. Thanks to all of the content available to you in the app — including Rdio content — you can easily share any song with your Play friends, Facebook or Twitter. These songs can be shared with the album cover art, or a picture of your choosing.
And if the other Play users subscribe to Rdio, they’ll also be able to listen to the full songs. Otherwise, non-Rdio users will be able to hear previews of the songs. There’s also a light geolocation layer (where you shared the song from). And you’ll be able to comment and like others’ shared songs.
Again, the app will be Android-first for now. But Lipman says an iPhone version will be out in a “few weeks”.
But the app is not without competition. Rival app SoundTracking is also making its first appearance in time for SXSW, though it will be iPhone-only at first.
March 10 2011
Confirmed: AOL Gives Over 200 U.S. Employees Pink Slips
As we’ve heard over the past few days, AOL has started implementing layoffs across its properties in the wake of the Huffington Post acquisition. The deal, which amounted to $315 million, closed on Monday of this week. We’ve confirmed the firings with AOL and here is the breakdown of the exact numbers and where the layoffs will take place.
AOL will be letting go a little over 200 U.S. employees, around 120 of which are editorial staffers. The remaining employees that are being let go also work in AOL’s media business but in other operations (technology, product). With the merger with the Huffington Post, AOL will actually be gaining 250 employees from the media property, around 150 of which are editorial staffers. AOL says that after the merger, there is a net gain of 17 editorial staffers. And including Patch, AOL still employs 1,200 journalists in editorial.
In total, India’s casualties are around 750 employees. In India, AOL will be letting go around 400 employees and transitioning around 350 employees to become contractors. We understand that in Asia, AOL wants staffers to focus on creating products for the Asian markets as opposed to providing back-end support to global operations.
So in total, today’s bloodbath has resulted in AOL is shedding just under 1,000 employees.
The layoffs resulted from eliminating the redundancies created by merging The Huffington Post with AOL’s content properties. Arianna Huffington is now the President and Editor In Chief of all of AOL’s media properties, which is now called the Huffington Post Media Group (and which includes TechCrunch).
This isn’t the largest set of layoffs for AOL—the company let 2,000 employees go in 2007 and gave 700 staffers pink slips in 2009. And when AOL spun off from Time Warner, it also suffered massive layoffs.
March 04 2011
Confirmed: AOL’s Patch Buys Hyperlocal News Site Outside.In
AOL’s Patch has acquired hyperlocal news aggregator Outside.In, we’ve confirmed with Patch’s president Warren Webster. It’s unclear what the terms of the deal are but Business Insider reported earlier that the acquisition is valued at less than $10 million. Outside.In has raised $14.4 million in funding to date.
Webster tells us that Outside.In, which has a previous relationship with AOL, will be integrated with Patch, the company’s hyperlocal news platform. The New York-based Outside.In is a local news aggregator aimed at bringing together all the hyperlocal news around a given location. Via its search portal, you simply enter your zipcode, neighborhood or address and the site will surface the most relevant news in your particular area. Outside.In focuses on sourcing information and news from local bloggers as opposed to large publications.
The startup has raised funding from Union Square Ventures, Milestone Venture Partners, the New York City Investment Fund, Marc Andreesen, Esther Dyson, John Seeley Brown, John Borthwick, and George Crowley and others.
Considering Patch’s hyperlocal focus, the integration of Outside.In’s it makes sense from a technology standpoint. Outside.In’s traffic has been declining over the past six months and only saw 317,000 unique visitors in January, according to comScore. In addition to the coverage that Patch reporters provide in a given area, Outside.In will be able to supplement news with its search platform, and scale coverage. It’s no secret that AOL has been aggressively looking to expand Patch’s coverage and reach.
This isn’t the first exit for a hyperlocal news aggregator. Chicago-based EveryBlock was acquired by MSNBC back in 2009. And of course, AOL bought Patch in 2009 as well.
Disclosure: AOL owns TechCrunch.
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