
Aol Is Restructuring, Layoffs and Site Closures Likely - devNoise
http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/19/aol-is-restructuring-layoffs-and-site-closures-likely/
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Animats
AOL may have to return to its profitable core business - dial-up. Yes, AOL
still has millions of dial-up accounts, and those bring in more revenue than
the content farms.

Somebody has to serve middle America.

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Animats
Who modded that down? Look at AOL's income graph.
([https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BnDHPXzCYAAS2Zu.png](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BnDHPXzCYAAS2Zu.png))
AOL still has over 2 million members paying $20 or so a month, and that's
where all their profits come from. Their "content" business loses money.

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mikeryan
(I didn't mod it down, but..)

I don't think anyone looks at the dial-up business as one thats going to do
anything but shrink year over year. Any growth for AOL is going to come out of
something thats not as an ISP for dial-up. Content farming consistent with
AOL's DNA that makes money and, in theory, is way to see some growth.

Looking at that chart is confusing to me because I can't tell why sometimes
their Platform business kills it, and other times its a loser. That seems to
be the business to focus on.

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sedachv
> Looking at that chart is confusing to me because I can't tell why sometimes
> their Platform business kills it, and other times its a loser.

They're making money Q4 2011, Q4 2012, Q4 2013 and to a lesser extent Q3 2013.
Looks like it might be Christmas shopping ads.

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sleazebreeze
Of note from the article is that Huffington Post is not the money-maker it
used to be.

I have noticed this from my own browsing habits. I actively avoid Huffington
Post if I want anything resembling unbiased or accurate news. More often these
days, it seems like they are willing to regurgitate any old blog post or
celebrity tweet as a news item. That type of content is a lot less valuable to
me (and it seems to others as well) than original reporting and journalism -
anything other than "what this celebrity posted to instagram".

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sremani
Because of the click-baity and rah rah rally the base type of political slant
even on mundane of the news, made people to leave Huffington Post in droves.

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DigitalSea
Interesting that Techcrunch mentions traffic percentage drops of other AOL
owned properties like Huffington Post and PawNation, but carefully leaves
itself out of that particular paragraph. I honestly can't recall the last time
I saw a Techcrunch article shared on my LinkedIn or Facebook feed, it feels
like TheVerge has done a better job at taking the tech mantle (but that is
just my opinion), maybe the people I know just prefer sites like TheVerge
instead.

I think Techcrunch needs a little bit of a shake-up to be quite honest. The
quality of the articles have been very sub-par for a very long time. I am
surprised Shingy hasn't had one of his "brain farts", yelled gibberish for 20
minutes like he usually does and save AOL.

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vxNsr
The verge is now more of a culture site than a tech site, they've really
embraced the "culture culture" aspect of their motto. Often their tech
articles are left wanting while having too many movies and tv shows articles.

I've found that arstech or anandtech offer a lot more with less whining.

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knd775
I'm wondering if Techcrunch will be affected by this. They didn't really
mention anything about that. It'd be a shame if anything were to happen to
such a site.

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dennisnedry
I doubt it. TechCrunch actually does provide a lot of value. I think the
chopping block will be limited to meme-sites like PawNation.

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kstrauser
While there are some (to me) big sites rumored to be on the chopping block,
I'd literally never heard of several candidates before this article. Am I that
out of touch with mainstream browsing habits, or had AOL gone crazy with
buying content houses whether or not they had audiences?

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LaSombra
Funny thing: I got an offer from Aol last month.

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phacks
I just learned that AOL was still alive.

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rakeshsharmak
Hopefully, Shingy will have one of his "brain farts" and things will get
better at AOL.

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libraryatnight
He must not have solved for the missing human experience, yet.

