Rachel Weisz Miranda Kerr Sarah Shahi Anna Paquin Diane Kruger
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
New Dietary Guidelines Don?t Admit Obesity is an Economic Problem
Image: pepemczolz/Flickr In a new effort to trim the fat from Americans, the USDA and Dept. of Health and Human Services have released new dietary guidelines today. With its admonition to increase exercise and reduce calories, it embraces... Read more
Bijou Phillips Marika Dominczyk Dita Von Teese Rachel Nichols Dido
The new ?AOL Way?: It?s all about the numbers
This is what you get when a former Google executive runs a media company.
Business Insider has published a leaked copy of what it said is AOL?s new ?master plan,? a presentation outlining the company?s goals and processes for the next few months. What comes across is an intense focus on numbers. And hey, that makes sense for a business document, but there is something both beautiful and scary about the way AOL is trying to streamline its entire ?content generation? process (or, as I like to call it, ?writing and editing?) for maximum profitability.
So what are AOL?s goals? Basically, to turn every blog post into a serious moneymaker. Specifically, by the end of March, AOL aims to increase the total number of articles published each month from 31,500 to 40,000, and to grow the median number of pageviews per article from 1,500 to 7,000. Meanwhile, the average cost of creating an article should fall from $99 to $84, and the profit margin on each article should increase from 35 percent to 50 percent.
When deciding what topic to cover, the AOL Way apparently involves weighing issues like traffic potential, revenue/profit, turnaround time, and editorial quality. Again, these are considerations that any for-profit publication is probably weighing, but what?s impressive is how specific AOL?s guidelines are — for example, there?s a ?Demand Tool? that might, for example, predict that an article will earn $500, so under AOL’s guidelines a website can spend up to $250 for that piece of content.
The document also mentions a new ?SEO Checker? that is supposed to be used on virtually all of AOL?s content, giving writers and editors guidelines on how to customize their articles to show up prominently in search engines.
AOL, of course, is in the middle of what is hopefully a turnaround. Tim Armstrong (pictured), formerly an executive at Google (a company famous for its focus on quantifying everything), took over as CEO about two years ago and led the company in a spinoff from Time Warner. Last November, Armstrong reported earnings that beat analyst estimates for the first time, although ad revenue was still down. (AOL will release its next earnings report tomorrow.) On the tech side, AOL’s properties include Engadget and TechCrunch.
Business Insider reports that some of AOL?s writers and editors commented positively on the changes, while another declared, ?AOL is the most fucked up, bullshit company on Earth.?
Not surprisingly, this document has provoked a lot of comments from the VentureBeat editorial team. A couple of writers are dancing a happy dance that we?re not working at AOL or an organization with similarly straitlaced guidelines. But my boss Owen Thomas reports that he?s taking copious notes.
Companies: aol
People: Tim Armstrong
Rachel McAdams Kristin Cavallari Brittany Murphy Britney Spears Amanda Swisten
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Women Entrepreneur Festival
I'm going to be spending today at the Women Entrepreneurs Festival at NYU's ITP school. I'll be tweeting out the things that are most interesting to me, and will post all of them to the #wefestival hashtag where there are...
Sophia Bush Megan Fox Michelle Malkin Charlies Angels Rose Byrne
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