AOL, Inc. (NYSE:AOL) has sold off a subsidiary called Surphace, a content recommendation company to Outbrain. “In keeping with the AOL strategy, any place where we are not a leader in the category or profitable, we are going to look at partnerships or other alternatives. This is one of those businesses. We are pleased we found a great home for the Surphace technology and its employees,” stated AOL head of venture and local Jon Brod. AOL had acquired Surphace in 2008 for over $25 million when they used to be called Sphere. Sphere co-founder Tony Conrad left AOL in 2009, but came back when About.me was acquired. The financial details were undisclosed.

AOL has launched an open source United Kingdom based project called OpenStreetMap. OpenStreetMap focuses on user-created mapping and AOL is putting $1 million behind the project. Even though the project is U.K. based, users can navigate to use-created maps in any country.

AOL, Inc. (NYSE:AOL) EVP Jon Brod sent over a memo to employees regarding the reason why the company is interested in shutting down Bebo. The core reason is that Bebo is a business that has been declining and it would require too much of an investment in an effort to compete. Below if the full memo [BusinessInsider]:

AOL social network subsidiary Bebo.com has named a new head of global operations, Stephane Panier.  Panier will be responsible for scaling the social network’s media operations and advancing the global reach of the service.  Currently Bebo has 24 million users around the world.  Panier was previously the VP and COO of Bebo.  Panier will be reporting to Jon Brod, the EVP of AOL Ventures.

Before joined Bebo in January 2009, Panier worked at Google for 6 years in finance and operations positions.  “Stephane is a proven strategist and operator with executive experience from some of the world’s leading brands and businesses,” stated Brod. “He is the ideal leader to build on Bebo’s existing successes, to chart a course for its future, and to execute against that vision.”

AOL has bought out a local news website called Patch.com.  Tim Armstrong invested seed capital in Patch.com back in 2007.  As part of the deal, Armstrong will not profit from the seed investment he put in.  However, he will receive his seed capital back through AOL shares once the company separates from Time Warner.

Armstrong’s seed capital was made through his private investment company Polar Capital Group.  Another acquisition that AOL announced is Going.com.  The price of both properties were not disclosed.

The full press release is available after the jump.

[via BusinessInsider]