Oh, my god... Breaking news bulletin: Hilary Duff World debuts on AOL on Monday! She'll appear on AOL's kids' service KOL and on its teen service Red.
Quick, take a note. Mark your calendar.
Make sure your teenage girls know about this development. Yes, that's right, Duff World (not to be mistaken for "Huff World"; the HuffingtonPost is for grownups, silly) is where you can tune in to get
the lowdown on Hilary's favorite books, music, and movies; the star will pen a blog and even a monthly advice column. (Think how to hold on to your man for teen girls, or how to score Chanel couture
for your red-carpet premiere). Oh, brother...
Well, it figures. If adults are celebrity-obsessed, kids are too.
And you can expect much more celebrity-driven fare from AOL in coming weeks.
AOL's launching "TMZ" (www.tmz.com) on Dec. 1, but you can expect a beta version at least a week earlier. The gossip-infused, multimedia, blog-style gossip network is
led by Harvey Levin, formerly the executive producer of "Celebrity Justice." Levin landed at AOL after Telepictures Productions pulled the plug on the syndicated "CJ." TMZ, by the way, is a joint
venture of AOL and Telepictures. Look for more content plays like this one to sprout from AOL in the near future.
Levin has reportedly plucked young reporters from "CJ" who will become
personalities on the network. TMZ will offer news and features on TV, film, and music celebrities and distribute the programming like an actual newsroom. The network will launch with two video-based
shows: "Chatterzone," a series where TMZ reporters use their connections to reveal juicy and exclusive tidbits, and "Star Catcher," which features stars at clubs, premieres,parties and
restaurants.We're told the network will have access to archival footage and video from Telepictures' "Extra."
Of course it's not ALL gossip, all the time at AOL. Comedy, and for goodness sake,
music, are major domos. AOL yesterday announced its acquisition of MusicNow, a Chicago-based digital music provider, and will migrate MusicNet AOL subscribers to a new service dubbed "AOL Music Now."
There is also a new comedy channel launching soon, likely on the heels of the HBO Comedy Festival Nov. 17, where AOL is a sponsor. Several weeks ago when AOL's acquisition of Weblogs occurred, we
mentioned wanting to talk with Jim Bankoff about the move. Well, we finally caught up with AOL's busy executive vice president of programming and products to find out why the deal made sense not just
for Jason Calacanis--who we understand pocketed $20 million to $25 million for his blog company--but for AOL.
Bankoff says he was the instigator and that he was looking to build on AOL's
heritage in community: "In the old days we focused on chats and message boards. AOL was known for that. It was, and continues to be, a cornerstone of our programming strategy. Now it has evolved. We
have blogs and social networks...community is as important to us as it ever was. We have to embrace the community as part of our programming strategies," he states emphatically.
But why
Weblogs and not say, Nick Denton's properties? Obviously, at least a few of Weblogs' entities, like "Engadget," are among the most widely read in the blogosphere (a word that is growing more precious
by the day), at least according to Technorati, and the potential for advertising gold is there.
"We have been looking for a way to scale our micropublishing and community efforts," Bankoff
says, and AOL wasn't prepared to scoop up About.com, which the New York Times Co. did this summer. "We wanted to really target these micro communities in a really scalable way. We wanted them to be
conversations. The fact that these are blogs, conversations between bloggers and posters, and also great content sites [played a part], plus Weblogs had the most evolved and robust model out there. I
didn't see another network that offered the right variety of what we knew our consumers are interested in. Jason also had a great process for launching new sites," Bankoff adds.
Bankoff also
was a user: He visits Weblogs' Engadget and Blogging Baby regularly. It helped that Calacanis already had a long-term relationship with AOL; he was a partner in a venture called the AOL Greenhouse in
1995. And, HDnet's Mark Cuban is an investor in Weblogs and a friend of AOL. Weblogs was also the official blogger for AOL's Live 8 global concert extravaganza this summer.
But, Jim, what the
heck is micropublishing? "It's really great content, across a variety of topical passion areas. It could be on gadgets, cooking, autos; [it's just] great small content sites that appeal to an elite
set of users. It's conversations across topics and people exchanging opinions and ideas around those topics."
What does Weblogs do for AOL? "From a business perspective, Weblogs enables us to
launch more and more of these micro communities in a scalable fashion. Jason has developed a platform. The combination of AOL's distribution and Weblogs' process and system is a powerful one."
Plus, Bankoff says, "Blogs are a really nice complement to our sales solutions. We have the big reach vehicles across multiple different demographics. We have a big and powerful autos area and great
partners. Autoblog really appeals to the elite influencer who is really into cars and helping to influence the agenda of a lot of consumers. These are highly influential audiences. With Engadget,
these are the people who are making the recommendations and setting the agenda. You have a combination of targeting influences and the mass reach of aol.com."
But Jim, aren't some of these
bloggers obscure hotheads with extreme opinions? Plus, some of the blogs in the Weblogs portfolio probably have like 10 readers.
"I think the content is really strong. Different bloggers are
going to be stronger than others. People post, others comment, the community develops, there's a ranking system to understand who's most valuable. The cream continuously rises to the top. There is a
big sponsored link component of this, but branded advertising is a bigger piece of the revenue opportunity. The majority of revenues are from brand advertisers, not search," Bankoff tells this here
Minute. The Weblogs properties reportedly lure more than 30 million monthly Web page views and 25 million monthly RSS page views per month. Weblogs is believed to generate at least $1 million a year
from Google AdSense ads alone. "If you are a marketer that is really confident in your product, this is the ideal place to promote it. These are the evangelists and the influencers in any given
category. Word of mouth begins here. Plus, we'll have performance-based advertising and then Advertising.com scales with the traffic. We'll bring more traffic to it. Suffice to say, we have ambitious
goals," Bankoff concludes.