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Platform-A goes on tour

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Platform-A is taking AOL’s programming on tour to showcase its network of web properties and new niche sites to advertisers and agencies. The tour aims to underscore how Platform-A can leverage AOL’s sites to strengthen an advertiser’s brand and generate revenue. The roadshow, titled “The Wider Web: Achieving Growth in a Fragmented Market,” previewed in Dallas on November 5, is making its national debut in New York City at the American Museum of Natural History on November 17th, and will be followed by an event in Atlanta on November 20. Other events will take place in Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco in early 2009.

“AOL has one of the largest, most diverse and most engaged audiences on the Web, and combined with Platform-A’s industry-leading technologies, we can offer advertisers a unique combination of scale, integrated branding, and advanced targeting capabilities to enable them to deliver their branding messages in an effective, engaging and highly efficient way,” said Platform-A President Lynda Clarizio. “At a time when companies make sure that every penny spent on advertising counts, AOL delivers quality content and engaged consumers and Platform-A connects marketers to this audience to drive superior results.”

To date, Platform-A has fully integrated its sales forces, and developed one insertion order and other processes to streamline ad buying. In addition, Platform-A has accelerated its product development efforts with recent launches including Spot Marketplace, enabling advertisers to bid on nonreserved inventory across AOL’s Web sites; PubAccess, a self-service interface enabling Web sites to place their inventory for sale in Platform-A’s third party display network; audience targeting across Platform-A; and the creation of a 300 x 600 ad unit across AOL’s homepages and co-branded sites.

Each roadshow will provide advertisers and agencies with an in-depth look at AOL’s programming, and the opportunities they offer to reach targeted, highly desirable audiences, leveraging Platform-A’s industry-leading tools and technologies.

Originally posted on November 2, 2008 @ 11:20 am

AOL launches When.com online event guide

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AOL announced the launch of when.com, a new hyper-local online event guide that enables users to search and browse for a wide range of events in their local area, including kids and family activities, community events, live performances, sporting events and many others.

Each event listing includes detailed information, reviews, maps and directions from MapQuest, and when applicable, links to purchase tickets. Users can also easily bookmark events or add them to their AOL, Google, Outlook or Yahoo Calendar.

Events on when.com are searchable by time (today, tomorrow, next seven days, etc.), type (Arts and Crafts, Community, Dance, etc.) and by geographic area. Users can easily browse through events by using navigation tabs along the top and left-hand side of the page, or search for events by using the convenient search box at the top of the page.

In the coming weeks, additional when.com features will be rolled out including a when.com widget that can be added to any social networking page and a new “MyWhen” feature that will enable users to save events to their own when.com calendar and receive alerts and reminders for upcoming events. In addition, content from when.com will be integrated across MapQuest Local, AOL CityGuide, AOL Travel and other AOL websites.

When.com is powered by Zvents, a local search engine powering a network of hundreds of Web and mobile partners, featuring event listings to promote local businesses.

Originally posted on November 3, 2008 @ 2:38 pm

AOL launches access to social networks from its new site

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AOL announced a brand new homepage that will let consumers access multiple social networking services directly from AOL.com, becoming the first major portal to offer direct access to information from major social networking sites. This follows the move last month to provide access to multiple e-mail services from the AOL.com site, and is part of AOL’s ongoing strategy to open its homepage, to outside services and content– offering consumers more customization options.

The new social networking feature allows consumers to post status updates to multiple social networks at once, and provides profile activity information, including new friend requests, status updates and mail notifications from services such as AIM, Bebo, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and other third-party sites.

AOL.com also launched new tools and features to further personalize the user experience, bringing together third-party content and services from across the Internet. The new features give consumers more control over how content and services are displayed, letting them customize the main navigation bar by adding their own Web links, receive continuously updated local news, access RSS feeds from across the Web directly from the main page of AOL.com as well as personalize their experience with new design themes.

Originally posted on October 30, 2008 @ 10:06 am

Weblogs Inc. now on its third year with AOL

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AOL is celebrating the third anniversary of its acquisition of Weblogs, Inc. this month. In 2005, Weblogs had a large portfolio of niche blogs targeted at business and professional users, in addition to a general readership. Since then, Weblogs has honed its portfolio to 29 blogs focused on major consumer passion points such as technology, autos, finance, video games and travel. Since 2005, Weblogs has seen worldwide unique visitors climb nearly 1,000% (122% annually, on average) and page views rise over 1,500% (154% annually, on average), according to August 2008 comScore Media Metrix.

In addition to Weblogs’ own growth, the acquisition was instrumental to AOL’s launch of successful sites such as TMZ, Asylum, FanHouse, BloggingStocks, and Spinner.

Over the next 12 months, AOL plans to launch of number of new blog brands in important consumer interest areas, as well as aggressively continue the expansion of its blogs internationally.

Originally posted on October 24, 2008 @ 11:26 am

AOL Television launches new online series “Outside The Box”

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AOL Television has announced the launch of Outside the Box, a new free on-demand online series in which cast members from popular network and cable television programs interview one another using fan submitted questions.

The new series will put the power directly into the hands of television fans, allowing them to create and submit questions that will be used during the interviews. The one-on-one format features two or more cast members interviewing one another about the show, their characters and their antics on and off the set. Each episode will last no more than ten minutes and also include comical outtakes and bonus clips.

“Outside the Box signifies our ongoing commitment in providing consumers with the highest possible production quality, while simultaneously providing fans with unparalleled access to top talent,” said Mike Rich, Senior Vice President. “This new series will provide advertisers a new venue for high impact custom solutions while reaching a large scale built-in audience who consume, and then share video on the web.”

Originally posted on October 1, 2008 @ 11:05 am