Tim Armstrong has completed his 100-day review of AOL's business, and has identified content as the company's core focus as it seeks to gain back market share lost to rivals Google, Yahoo and
Microsoft. "There is going to be a very broad content economy in the future and we'd like AOL to be at the center of it," the AOL CEO told the Financial Times. Armstrong, who will discuss AOL's new
direction at a company-wide meeting on Friday, added that the company aimed to improve its Advertising.com display ad network business, invest in and build local niche content sites, and renew focus
on its ISP business.
According to comScore, AOL ranked fourth behind Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft in traffic in May, attracting 107 million unique visitors. Google, by comparison,
attracted 157 million visitors. AOL's 2008 revenue was $4.2 billion, compared with Google's $21.8 billion and Yahoo's $5.4 billion.
Altogether, traffic to AOL's MediaGlow network of
content sites increased 5% in June from a year ago to 75.4 million, according to comScore. Twenty-two of its sites ranked in the top five in their categories. "The one under-invested place on the
Internet from a technology and structured data perspective is content," Armstrong said, adding that investments in content management systems technology would provide the foundation for the company's
content expansion strategy.
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