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AOL. Strong Armin’. Finally.

June 14, 2010 in Digital Strategy | 0 Comments

Cambio is AOL’s first big bullet in the content strategy war with Yahoo. It makes me think AOL just may win this thing. I love Carol Bartz’s decision to go with the content approach for Yahoo, but still think her approach a bit too diffuse. They still possess a start page mentality over there – start page meaning, set your personal home page to Yahoo.

AOL, on the other had, spent enough time with Time Warner to learn a thing about packaging content.  They probably own a camera or two and kept some producers and directors around, so by signing the Jonas Bothers and their music company to a deal with the new AOL online music channel Cambio, cranking up some new content quickly may be very doable.   This is a transformative move. It may be the first real melding of music and new media we’ve seen; think Little Steven’s Garage (dot com) for kids. And, with a big, scalable company surrounding it.

AOL, BTW, should bring Little Steven and his garage over to the fold. No brainer. Why?  Because he’s a great curator, a special personality and he has a loyal following. The radio doesn’t do his project justice. I like this move for AOL — and though Cambio may only be the learning ground for something bigger, it’s a great idea. Tim Armstrong is human, but he’s beginning to hit stride.  Peace! 

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Aol, Cisco. Feed the Beast.

February 4, 2010 in Marketing | 0 Comments

Cisco and AOL both reported earnings today. Cisco, maker of Internet plumbing, had a very nice turnaround ; AOL posted its first profit since de-coupling from Time Warner – a penny a share. Not bad, all things considered. 

Cisco Systems

If you follow Cisco you know they have invested in getting more people to push more bits over the Internet.  Think Gillette getting people to shave their entire bodies.  (Okay, bad analogy.) Cisco has pushed videoconferencing for years and not too long ago bought Flip the hot video camera company. The more digital info that goes over the net, the more routers and switches and stock Cisco sells.

Aol

This is exactly the approach Aol needs to take.  Aol makes money on advertising so it needs to create content that makes more eyeballs and fingers go to their sites. Right now that means hiring great writers, videographers, creative people and buying and adding to the fold well-trafficked sites.  Better content, better audience numbers.  But Aol is not really thinking out of the box yet. It needs to come up with content types that haven’t been done.  As the Brits might say, they need to be more inno-vit-iv. How about an easy to use, easy to read email device for the AARP crowd?  Or an educational games for infants?  Or a remote home automation portal that lets you turn on lights from the street?  Aol is still thinking in 2 dimensions, a la a publisher.  Like Cisco, Mr. Armstrong needs to feed the beast.  Let’s pick it up!

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