AOL may have just turned the corner from being a distribution platform to an advertising one. For a company once known by the slogan, "You've Got Mail", it has been a struggle to adapt from a dial up world to broadband. Still, AOL kept out it, and seems to be emerging victorious.
Financially, all appears better than anticipated. " AOL’s quarterly results, were announced early Wednesday morning, showed
earnings per share of 35 cents, which was two cents higher than analysts
had predicted. Its overall revenue was up 2 percent from a year ago." Revenue is now more dependent on advertising than monthly subscriber fees. And AOL seems to have read the trends and put more energy and effort into video advertising over display. That is indicative of their planned acquisition of Adap.tv, a company focused on video advertising. While display advertising rates see downward price pressures, video advertising gets more noticed and higher values. And done well, it can be valued by consumers, too. Plus video streaming continues to grow as more video content finds its way to the web.
While AOL's Patch has had difficulty finding profitability, its other sites, like The Huffington Post, have built a successful formula of content aggregation, both words and video, frequently updated, and consistently visited by consumers. Its foray into live streaming programming as well may just prove to be a very profitable experiment. The "new" AOL has indeed turned the corner and embarked on a forward path that seems destined to be very successful.
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