Revealed: The Huffington Post Wanted To Buy TechCrunch Back In The Day

Leena Rao currently works as a writer for TechCrunch. She recently finished graduate school at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007, she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney’s community outreach and relations efforts in New York City. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was... → Learn More

My boss, Michael Arrington, sat down with his boss (and my boss as well), Arianna Huffington for a brief chat at TechCrunch Disrupt, where Huffington revealed that she tried to ‘merge’ the Huffington Post with TechCrunch before AOL bought us last September.

Of course, now we are all one big happy family now that AOL also scooped up The Huffington Post for $315 million, and we are now part of the Huffington Post Media Group, too.

Arianna Huffington is the president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, a nationally syndicated columnist, and author of thirteen books. Her latest, Third World America, published in...

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Touchdown Called Back: Fleaflicker Founder Buys Back Fantasy Sports Site From AOL

MG Siegler has been writing for TechCrunch since 2009. He covers the web, mobile, social, big companies, small companies, essentially everything. And Apple. A lot. Prior to TechCrunch, he covered various technology beats for VentureBeat. Originally from Ohio, MG attended the University of Michigan. He’s previously lived in Los Angeles where he worked in Hollywood and in San Diego where... → Learn More

Over three years ago, we reported that AOL had acquired the New Jersey-based fantasy sports site Fleaflicker. It seemed like a touchdown for 26-year-old founder Ori Schwartz. Now it’s looking more like a touchdown that was just called back.

AOL has alerted members of the service today that Schwartz has bought back Fleaflicker. As of July 22, AOL will no longer be in control of the site which has dwindled under the control of our parent company. “While we love Fleaflicker (and our users love Fleaflicker), we wanted to find a home for the product where it can receive more love and attention,” is the subtle middle finger in their FAQ.

The good news is that the service now has a new lease of life.?The newly created Fleaflicker LLC will continue to operate things without interruption. And all user data will remain intact without users have to do anything (those who do not wish to have their data transfered to the newly-owned service can opt-out). It will also remain free.

The bad news is that the timing of the transition could not be any worse. Every day, it’s looking more and more likely that the NFL lockout will put at least a part of the upcoming season in jeopardy. The NBA also faces a lockout this coming season. This will all be very problematic for fantasy sports in the coming months, to say the least.

Still, let’s hope that Fleaflicker can tap back into their bootstrapped ways and get back to the point that they were at in 2006, when Mike called them the “better” fantasy sports site.

Below, the message to users:

Dear AOL Fleaflicker User:

Fleaflicker has been acquired by its original founder, Ori Schwartz. As of July 22, 2011 AOL will no longer operate the Fleaflicker service.

The good news is that Ori’s company, Fleaflicker LLC, will continue to operate the service without interruption. All your fantasy teams and account information (including your login E-mail) will be transferred to Fleaflicker LLC. Please review the Fleaflicker LLC Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

Nothing is required of you to continue playing fantasy sports for free on Fleaflicker. However, if you do not want your data to be transferred, you may opt out by clicking here before July 22, 2011. If you do not opt out by this date, we will automatically begin the transition.

Sincerely,

The AOL Fleaflicker Team

For more information on the transfer of your account, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions area at www.fleaflicker.com/transition-faq.

Fleaflicker is a fantasy football site that rose in popularity during the 2005 NFL season, when many large fantasy sports providers, including ESPN.com, suffered major outages and forced fans...

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AOL is a global advertising-supported Web company, with display advertising network in the U.S., a substantial worldwide audience, and a suite of popular Web brands and products. The company’s strategy...

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The Devil Made Me Do It. AOL's Regrouped Advertising.com Is A $500 Million Business

Erick Schonfeld currently works at TechCrunch as Co-Editor. He joined in 2007 and is based in New York. Schonfeld oversees the editorial content of the site, selects and edits guest posts, helps to program the Disrupt conferences and CrunchUps, produces some TCTV shows, and writes daily for the blog. He is also the father of three... → Learn More

AOL’s advertising platforms, which are grouped under the Advertising.com business, is now a $500 million business, the company revealed today at its Investor Day in New York City. The Advertising.com Group is a new business unit inside AOL, which includes six separate products: The Advertising.com ad-serving network (which AOl acquired in 2004) and AdTech, along with more recent acquisitions 5Min (now AOL Video), Pictela, GoViral, and the internally built Seed product. (AOL also owns TechCrunch, but we are part of the Huffington Post Media Group).

All of that, all together is a $500 million business, which is about a quarter of AOL’s total revenue. And it’s clear that AOL thinks it can become a $1 billion business. Today was the first time AOL broke out these numbers.

AOL is trying to position itself as the best place for brands to advertise next to premium content. It is trying to do this first on its own sites, primarily with its Project Devil ads. But the bigger play is to become the ad network for premium brands across the Web by extending Project Devil ads and other new ad formats to the 26,000 publishers on AOL’s ad network.

And in fact, through Pictela, AOL is going to expand its highly engaging Project Devil Ads out across what it is calling the Devil Network. Devil Ads are larger-format ads that can include video or photo galleries, maps, or other interactive elements. AOL is seeing very high engagement rates with these ads, sometimes as high as 10 percent. Devil ads are just one format. Expect AOl to move into mobile ads and other formats as well.

AOL’s entire focus is to create branded experiences for big brand marketers. That includes putting those ads next to great content, but it also means rethinking the boring, old banner ad. Ned Brody, who runs the Advertising.com group, sees the opportunity this way: “There is $50 billion sitting in a locked vault, television and print. It is hard to convince advertisers to take that to a market where they get 0.2% clickthrough rates.”

In order for this plan to work, however, other sites will have to change their designs to be able to accept the bigger Devil ads. If they in fact do perform better, they might do that. But adoption will be a challenge. (Other Devil ads fit into standard 300X250 and 300X600 ad units).

AOL is a global advertising-supported Web company, with display advertising network in the U.S., a substantial worldwide audience, and a suite of popular Web brands and products. The company’s strategy...

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AOL's Q1: Display Ad Revenues Finally Going Up, But Profits Are Down 86 Percent

AOL's Q1: Display Ad Revenues Finally Going Up, But Profits Are Down 86 Percent | TechCrunchbN_cfg={h:location.hostname};(function(d){var s = d.createElement("script");s.src = "http://o.aolcdn.com/os/aol/beacon.min.js";d.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(s);})(document); /* */#site-logo { background: url(http://s2.wp.com/wp-content/themes/vip/tctechcrunch2/images/logos/green.png) !important; } HomeStartupsMobileGadgetsSocialTCTVMoreEnterpriseFundings & ExitsGamingGreenTechOpinionDisrupt SFCrunchBase Hot topicsAppleGoogleX100FacebookDeadpoolkickstarterUltrabook Comment TweetAOL's Q1: Display Ad Revenues Finally Going Up, But Profits Are Down 86?PercentRobin Wautersposted on Wednesday, May 4th, 2011 CommentsView Author PageI’m on Twitter

Robin Wauters currently works as a staff writer for TechCrunch and lead editor of Virtualization.com.Aside from his professional blogging activities, he’s an entrepreneur, event organizer, occasional board adviser and angel investor but most importantly an all-round startup champion. Wauters lives and works in Belgium, a tiny country in Europe. He can often be found working from his home or...→ Learn More

Our parent company AOL has just released its quarterly earnings for Q1 2011, and it’s a mixed bag (again).

Revenue came in at $551.4 million, which is better than most analysts had anticipated – the company was expected to earn $0.17 per share on revenues of $536.35 million. Actual earnings came in at $0.04 per share, down 86 percent.

Notably, global display advertising revenue grew 4 percent, marking the first quarter of year-over-year growth since Q4 2007 (!). Domestic display grew 11 percent in the quarter, or 6 percent excluding acquisitions.

Overall advertising revenue declined $40.6 million compared to Q1 2010, mostly due to lower third-party network revenue associated with shutdowns and reduced operations in Europe, in addition to the absence of revenue from Bebo and ICQ (which AOL sold in 2010).

Leaving aside those AOL-implemented initiatives, advertising revenue was essentially flat for the quarter, reflecting declines in search and contextual revenue but growth in display revenue and increases in Third Party Network revenue.

Among the notable things that happened at AOL during the first quarter: the company closed the acquisitions of goviral and The Huffington Post and aligned all of its content under the newly formed AOL Huffington Post Media Group, with Arianna Huffington as editor-in-chief.

aol q1 2011

Crunchbase AOL Company:
AOL Website:
http://www.aol.com IPO:
NYSE:AOL

AOL is a global advertising-supported Web company, with display advertising network in the U.S., a substantial worldwide audience, and a suite of popular Web brands and products.The company’s strategy...

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Play, AOL's Android Music Sharing App, Hits 250,000 Downloads In Three Weeks

Erick Schonfeld currently works at TechCrunch as Co-Editor. He joined in 2007 and is based in New York. Schonfeld oversees the editorial content of the site, selects and edits guest posts, helps to program the Disrupt conferences and CrunchUps, produces some TCTV shows, and writes daily for the blog. He is also the father of three... → Learn More

When a mobile app gets more than a hundred thousand downloads in its first few weeks, that is usually a good thing. Instagram hit 100,000 in a week, and music-sharing app Soundtracking got there in two weeks. But another music-sharing app, Play by AOL, is right up there with 250,000 downloads in three weeks.

Play is very similar to Soundtracking. It lets you share snippets of songs, along with album art or photos, with your friends via Twitter, Facebook, or the in-app network. Play might even have more downloads than Soundtracking, which is getting far more buzz. But what’s interesting about Play is that it launched first on Android, and is not yet available on the iPhone. Still, it’s getting a decent amount of traction.

Winamp for Android, another AOL mobile music app, saw 500,000 downloads its first month in private beta, and is now well over 3 million. (TechCrunch is also owned by AOL). And games like Angry Birds have seen millions of Android downloads as well. This kind of traction is yet more evidence that Android has arrived as a viable alternative to the iPhone for app developers.

AOL is a global advertising-supported Web company, with display advertising network in the U.S., a substantial worldwide audience, and a suite of popular Web brands and products. The company’s strategy...

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The SoundTracking iPhone app is free, and is the best way to share the soundtrack to your life.

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Android is a software platform for mobile devices based on the Linux operating system and developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance. It allows developers to write managed...

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AOL Jumps To No. 2 Spot In comScore Online Video Rankings

Leena Rao currently works as a writer for TechCrunch. She recently finished graduate school at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007, she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney’s community outreach and relations efforts in New York City. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was... → Learn More

Online video views continue to rise. ComScore has released data from its Video Metrix service, showing that 174 million Internet users in the United States watched online video content in March for an average of 14.8 hours per viewer. That’s up from 170 million users in February. In total, the U.S. Internet audience engaged in more than 5.7 billion viewing sessions during March (compared to 5 billion in February).

Google Sites (a.k.a. YouTube) was the top online video content property in March with 143.2 million unique viewers. AOL jumped from the seventh spot in February to the second spot in March with 57 million viewers. Yahoo Sites followed with 56.4 million viewers. Microsoft Sites came in fourth with 53.1 million viewers, while VEVO ranked fifth with 52.6 million viewers. Facebook came in sixth with 48.8 million viewers. Google Sites had the highest number of viewing sessions as it neared the 2 billion mark, and highest time spent per viewer at 276 minutes, or 4.6 hours.

So why did AOL jump five spots in the past month? There are a few possible reasons for this, but the main one is because comScore is counting video viewership differently than before. ComScore says that as the data analysis company switches over to UD, (unified digital measurement); AOL’s online video views have been boosted.

And of course, AOL has also recently become more bullish on video content and is ramping up video production on its properties. AOL bought video syndication network 5min last Fall for this reason. And in January 2010, AOL acquired StudioNow for $36.5 million to integrate a solid video creation platform into its content business. And AOL acquired the Huffington Post in February and closed the deal in early March. Videos from the Huffington Post are also contributing (and we are doing our small part with TCTV).

In terms of video ad views, Americans viewed 4.3 billion video ads in March, with Hulu generating the highest number of video ad impressions at more than 1.2 billion. Tremor Media Video Network followed (and highest among video ad networks) with 804.3 million ad views, followed by Adap.tv (553 million) and BrightRoll Video Network (398 million).

Time spent watching videos ads neared 1.9 billion minutes during the month, with Hulu delivering the highest duration of video ads at 520 million minutes. Video ads reached 43 percent of the total U.S. population an average of 33 times during the month. Hulu also delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 47 over the course of the month.

Disclosure: We are owned by AOL.

“comScore is a global Internet information provider to which leading companies turn for consumer behavior insight that drives successful marketing, sales and trading strategies. comScore’s experienced analysts work closely with...

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AOL Authorizes $250 Million Stock Buyback Program After Share Price Falls Off A Cliff

Robin Wauters currently works as a staff writer for TechCrunch and lead editor of Virtualization.com. Aside from his professional blogging activities, he’s an entrepreneur, event organizer, occasional board adviser and angel investor but most importantly an all-round startup champion. Wauters lives and works in Belgium, a tiny country in Europe. He can often be found working from his home or... → Learn More

AOL (which, in case you didn’t know, has been the owner of TechCrunch for almost a year now) has announced that its board of directors has given the green light for a stock repurchase program that will allow the company to buy back up to $250 million of its outstanding shares of common stock from time to time over the next 12 months.

The move comes after AOL’s stock took a gigantic nosedive following the reporting of its second-quarter results.

AOL reported revenues of $542.2 million for the quarter, down 8 percent compared to Q2 2010, and a net loss of $11.8 million. The results beat analyst expectations, but investors were unhappy and sent shares to their lowest level since AOL separated from Time Warner in December 2009.

AOL also lowered its outlook for the year, which didn’t help.

A stock repurchase program lets companies buy back its own shares from the marketplace, thus reducing the number of outstanding shares, and is usually authorized when a company’s management believes the shares are undervalued or depressed. The reduction of the float means that even a company’s bottom line remains the same, its earnings per share increase.

AOL share price closed at $10.22 yesterday, down from $15.07 two days ago.

Comments Artie Minson, CFO of AOL:

“This announcement highlights both our strong balance sheet and free cash flow generation. We believe this is a unique opportunity to invest in our company.”

At June 30, 2011, AOL had $458.7 million of cash, while free cash flow was $77.2 million in Q2 2011.

AOL is a global advertising-supported Web company, with display advertising network in the U.S., a substantial worldwide audience, and a suite of popular Web brands and products. The company’s strategy...

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