In May, for example, Seed boss and former New York Times tech reporter Saul Hansell was moved
over to the Huffington Post as "big news editor." Meanwhile, despite AOL's modestly improving ad business, investors and analysts have continued to criticize the company's local, freelance-driven
content strategy as too costly and unstructured.
Along with Seed, many have taken direct aim at Patch, AOL's local news network. According to BI's source, the writing is on the wall for Patch, too. "I noticed that Seed is pretty much defunct," the anonymous freelance tells BI. "No stories to claim. Looks like Patch is going to follow the same path."