Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Jon Brod

AOL Sells Surphace To Outbrain

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 22:43:16 +0000

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 Launches Open Source Map Project: OpenStreetMap

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 14:29:24 +0000

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.

“We fundamentally believe that community-contributed mapping will be better than any closed platform,” said AOL Ventures EVP Jon Brod in an interview. Another reason for this effort is AOL’s is in the process of finding additional ways to compete against Google Maps. MapQuest had about 49 million unique visitors in May, while Google Maps had 63 million. MapQuest recently underwent a redesign last month too.

[Wall Street Journal]

Why Does AOL Want To Sell Bebo?

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 00:08:49 +0000

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]:

In an annual filing for Bebo we will make tomorrow, AOL will indicate that it is currently evaluating strategic alternatives, which could include a sale or shut down of Bebo in 2010.
Obviously this is significant news – particularly for the Bebo team, which has done a great job remaining committed to Bebo’s users and overall business. However, AOL’s strategy has evolved driven by the fact that we are in a turnaround and that we need to get the company as focused as possible.
The strategy we set in May 2009 leverages our core strengths and scale in quality content, premium advertising and consumer applications, positioning us for the next phase of growth of the Internet. As we evaluate our portfolio of brands against our strategy, it is clear that social networking is a space with heavy competition, and where scale defines success. Bebo, unfortunately, is a business that has been declining and, as a result, would require significant investment in order to compete in the competitive social networking space. AOL is not in a position at this time to further fund and support Bebo in pursuing a turnaround in social networking.

AOL is committed to working quickly to determine if there are any interested parties for Bebo and the company’s current expectation is to complete our strategic evaluation by the end of May 2010.

Stephane Panier Becomes Head Of Bebo Global Ops

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:27:19 +0000

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 Buys Out Patch.com, A Startup That Armstrong Invested In

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:02:03 +0000

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]

AOL today announced two acquisitions in the local space: Patch Media Corporation, http://www.patch.com, a local news and information platform aimed at serving local towns and communities and Going, Inc., http://www.going.com, a local platform for people to discover and share information about things to do in a number of leading cities across the country. Both Patch and Going offer local experiences, content and self-service applications for consumers and advertisers.

“Local remains one of the most disaggregated experiences on the Web today — there’s a lot of information out there but simply no way for consumers to find it quickly and easily,” said Tim Armstrong, AOL ’s Chairman and CEO . “It’s a space that’s prime for innovation and an area where AOL has a significant audience and a valuable mapping service in MapQuest. Going forward, local will be a core area of focus and investment for AOL . The acquisitions of Patch and Going will help us build out our local network further with excellent local services that enable people to stay better informed about what’s going on in their neighborhood.”

The acquisitions extend AOL ’s network of local services, the largest online local network,* reaching more than 54 million total unique visitors per month.** Both acquisitions also leverage a consumer and marketplace trend toward greater consumption of news and information online.

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that more people now say they get most of their news from online sources than from traditional newspapers (40% vs. 35%).***

In addition, local searches grew 58% in 2008 year over year, while overall searches climbed just 21%, according to research conducted by the Yellow Pages Association in March 2009.

Local advertising (online and offline) represents an approximately $103 billion market (approximately 39% of total U.S. ad spending), according to Borrell Associates in 2009.

Founded in December 2007 and headquartered in New York, Patch combines localized, professional journalism with community contribution and a platform that puts all town assets online – in effect, digitizing the community. Patch, which expects to be available in a dozen communities by the end of the year, currently has “Patches” in five communities with four more in development.

“We are excited to join the AOL family,” said Jon Brod, CEO of Patch. “AOL’s substantial network will help us extend the reach of Patch into more and more communities. And Patch, as part of AOL’s local strategy, will create new opportunities for AOL to delight consumers and provide marketers access to highly targeted and deeply engaged audiences.”

Launched in September 2006 and headquartered in Boston , Going is one of the leading local communities for 20-somethings looking for things to do in cities across the country. Going is available in 30 leading U.S. cities, including New York , Los Angeles , Chicago , Miami and Boston , with several more planned this year. Going also provides local promoters, event organizers and venues a fully automated, self-service RSVP, ticketing and advertising engine to maximize the attendance and value of their events.

“Going allows young people in leading cities to discover upcoming events, parties and new hot spots – and most importantly connect with others who share a similar lifestyle. By joining with AOL, we have the opportunity to greatly expand the reach of our platform to more cities both in the U.S. and around the world,” said Evan Schumacher, Going’s CEO.

“AOL has a legacy of connecting people to the content, community and services they care most about,” said Armstrong. “Patch and Going, combined with our existing network, will enable the company that got America online, to connect consumers around the globe to their communities online.”

* April 2009 U.S. comScore Media Metrix; Local Networks category is a custom built category by AOL .

** Custom AOL-defined Local Networks report, based on comScore U.S. Media Metrix Audience Duplication report (April 2009).

*** Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, “Internet Overtakes Newspapers as News Outlet,” December 2008.