Point a Web browser to Engadget.com, TheBoot.com, or TMZ.com, and elaborate sites about consumer electronics, country music and celebrity gossip will appear on the screen. They could easily be mistaken for stand-alone brands.
But a small link to the owner, in a corner of the screen, shows otherwise. That owner is AOL, the long-suffering unit of Time Warner. And the subtle links are intentional.
AOL is akin to a magazine model of niche titles for fragmented audiences interested in specific subjects, counting more than 70 sites in its publishing portfolio and planning to add 30 more in the coming year. The sites are AOL’s latest attempt to make a clean break from its “walled garden” past of dial-up Internet access.
“Instead of having a handful of front doors, we’re creating dozens if not hundreds of front doors that are more relevant to advertisers,” Bill Wilson, an AOL publishing executive, said in advance of his formal appointment Monday as president of a new business unit to organize the effort, MediaGlow.
MediaGlow represents the third leg of a tripod for AOL, formerly America Online, joining the company’s fledgling advertising operation, Platform-A, and its social networking services. Wilson, like other AOL executives, described the three tiers as a “total reinvention of the company.”
Given AOL’s tattered reputation, a drastic makeover is in the company’s best interest. The company, while profitable, continues to suffer drops in display advertising on its sites. Imran Khan, an analyst at JPMorgan, estimated last week that AOL suffered an 18 percent decline in advertising revenue last year. Time Warner has shown interest in selling AOL for more than a year.
Corporate maneuvering aside, tens of millions of consumers visit AOL sites each month, some without even knowing it. The niche strategy is also a trend at other major media companies, said Jonathan Dube, president of…