AOL's New Plan: Content, Content, Content - BusinessWeek
AOL’s focus is interesting because it takes a long-discussed idea — what if Google got into original content? — and tests it. Consider this passage from the Business Week piece:
Owning a popular destination that’s built to divert traffic to subsidiary properties is a huge asset (as Yahoo knows). The challenge for AOL, Yahoo and other popular sites with perception issues is to manage their own expectations: there’s value in that traffic — and more than enough advertising dollars to create a strong business — but they have to fight the urge to overestimate the future. Web-based content businesses need to be lean, efficient and small(er).… AOL comes to this game with substantial advantages, thanks to its daily gusher of traffic. Its sites still get more than 100 million unique visitors each month; around one-third of that traffic hits the home page. And its e-mail and instant messaging services still are widely used. MediaGlow CEO Bill Wilson disclosed through a spokeswoman that around 40% of MediaGlow’s traffic comes from AOL’s home page and other sites in the AOL network.
