AOL reported first quarter earnings this morning, which saw it posting higher revenues than expected by analysts, with $529.4 million in revenue during the quarter, beating the $527 million consensus. However, this represented a 4% drop from a year earlier. Meanwhile, net income rose fourfold from the same quarter last year, with net income at $21.1 million (22 cents per share), up from $4.7 million (4 cents per share) in this quarter last year.

Although total ad revenue increased by 5% to $330.1 million, AOL reported that U.S. display ads fell 1% to $118.9 million – representing the first decline in the last five quarters. AOL owns several online properties, including TechCrunch, as well as Engadget, local news source Patch, and the Huffington Post, among others.

Globally, the display revenue was driven by growth in international display advertising, particularly growth in both the U.K. and Canada. The domestic display advertising revenue declined primarily reflecting a decline in reserved impressions sold, but this was partially offset by growth in reserved inventory pricing and Patch revenue. (Yes, Patch!) According to AOL’s report, “Patch grew traffic and advertisers over 40% year-over-year and revenue over 100% year-over-year.”

Other areas doing well in the product/consumer space included video (videos, video views, video ad impressions, and video revenue grew at double-digit rates), and traffic was up over Q4 2011 to 108 million uniques.

In April, AOL agreed to sell more than 800 patents to Microsoft for $1.06 billion, and that transaction is expected to close by year-end. In today’s statement, AOL said Microsoft might have to pay $211.2 million if the deal is terminated.

In a statement, Tim Armstrong, Chairman and CEO, said: “AOL is a much stronger company today than a year ago and began 2012 by growing advertising revenue, lowering expenses and improving Adjusted OIBDA trends. In 2012 and beyond we are simultaneously focused on the continued successful execution of our strategy and on creating and unlocking value for our shareholders.”

I know we’ve been taking the piss out of Aol* all day, but someone in Aol PR must be drunk, because this bizarre “BREAKING: Board Has Presided over Improvement of AOL’s Operating Results and Financial Strength and Unlocked over $1.7 Billion in Value in Two Years” press release just happened.

We figure that this must be some sort of Zodiac Killer-like word puzzle, where if you take out every three letters it’s an actually a crazy rambling essay about how much whoever wrote this hates their life.

*Disclosure: Aol owns TechCrunch, even though I think they probably regret it at this point.

Full release below.

Board Has Presided over Improvement of AOL’s Operating Results and Financial Strength and Unlocked over $1.7 Billion in Value in Two Years

NEW YORK, May 02, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) — –AOL Urges Stockholders to Vote FOR the Board’s Nominees on the WHITE Proxy Card Today

–Mails Letter to Stockholders

AOL, Inc. AOL -1.34% today mailed a letter to stockholders in connection with the Company’s 2012 Annual Meeting of Stockholders scheduled for June 14, 2012.

The following is the text of the letter from Tim Armstrong, AOL’s Chairman and CEO

May 2, 2012
Dear Fellow Stockholder:
Since AOL became an independent public company in late 2009, AOL’s
Board of Directors (“Board”) and senior management have successfully
charted a new strategic and financial course for the Company. This
new approach has significantly improved AOL’s results, enhanced the
prospects for sustained growth, and created value for all
stockholders.
You now face an important decision about the future of your
investment in the Company. At our Annual Meeting of Stockholders on
June 14, 2012, Starboard Value L.P. (“Starboard”), an AOL
stockholder, is seeking to elect its own slate of three Director
candidates to your Board in order to advance its own interests. We
urge you to continue to support the AOL Board and our strategy for
success.
Your vote is important in this election, and we urge you to
vote so that your voice is heard. To elect the AOL Board’s
nominees, we encourage you to vote today by telephone, by
Internet, or by signing and dating the enclosed WHITE proxy card
and returning it in the postage-paid envelope.

AOL HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY IMPLEMENTING ITS CLEAR STRATEGY TO DELIVER LONG-TERM STOCKHOLDER VALUE

– We have STREAMLINED our operations by reducing annual costs by approximately $500 million prior to investment in areas of strategic focus, reducing headcount by 37%, ending unfavorable distribution deals and exiting unprofitable markets.

– We have MONETIZED our patent portfolio by entering into a definitive agreement with Microsoft Corporation (“Microsoft”) to sell over 800 patents and license 300 additional patents and patent applications for $1.056 billion in cash in a tax efficient transaction.

– We have RETURNED capital to stockholders by buying back more than 12% of our outstanding shares since August 2011, and have committed to return a significant portion of the proceeds of the almost $1.1 billion patent sale.

– We have ENHANCED the consumer experience offered by our products by significantly reducing the number of advertisements on our pages, introducing industry-changing offerings like Project Devil, by investing in high-growth opportunities like The Huffington Post, goviral and Patch, by improving our search product, and by tailoring our Subscription service to our customers’ needs through curated service bundles and

– We have FOCUSED our product portfolio by investing in key destination brands, including AOL.com, The Huffington Post, Moviefone, DailyFinance, Stylelist, Engadget and TechCrunch, while outsourcing non-core content such as Sports, Health and Real Estate Listings.

Our strategy has positioned the Company to succeed in a digital
landscape that is still being formed. AOL has developed a
premier portfolio of online brands. On a monthly basis, our brands
serve the needs of more than 200 million consumers around the
world and we have a full-service suite of advertising products
that allows our thousands of advertising partners to reach
meaningful audiences at scale. We believe our strategy has
positioned AOL for success today and in the future of the digital
media space. Our strategy is working, has created significant
stockholder value, and will create even more stockholder value
over the long-term–if YOU, by supporting the AOL Board, allow
that strategy to proceed.

AOL’S STRATEGY IS WORKING, GENERATING IMPROVED RESULTS AND POSITIONING THE COMPANY FOR GROWTH

AOL ended 2011 with our best relative performance as a Company
in the past five years with advertising revenue growing once
again for the first time since 2008, with significant improvements
in legacy revenue streams and with substantial cost reductions. As
a result, the Company is well on its way to achieving its goal of
total company revenue and adjusted operating income before
depreciation and amortization (“Adjusted OIBDA”) growth in 2013.
Our improved results demonstrate the significant progress we have
made in executing our strategy.

– We have ACHIEVED revenue growth in global display revenue for the first time since 2007 in the first quarter of 2011 and grew global display revenue year-over-year in each quarter of 2011 and by 15% in the fourth quarter of 2011.

– We have ATTAINED four consecutive quarters of year-over-year revenue growth in search on AOL.com and three consecutive quarters of year-over-year revenue growth in Third Party Network revenue.

– We have ACCOMPLISHED significant improvements in key metrics in the fourth quarter of 2011, including a double-digit growth rate in video revenue, video ad impressions, Project Devil advertisers and revenue, and a triple-digit growth rate in local traffic, advertisers, ad impressions and revenue.

– We have PRODUCED substantial progress in moderating the decline in subscription revenues, with the first sequential growth in subscription revenues since 2006 occurring in the fourth quarter of 2011 and

– We have REALIZED two consecutive quarters of sequential Adjusted OIBDA growth through the fourth quarter of 2011 and the first increase in free cash flow year-over-year since the first quarter of 2009.

AOL is investing in high-growth areas, such as Patch. Patch
offers a flexible and powerful solution connecting national,
regional and local advertisers with highly-engaged, hyper-local
audiences on one platform. The opportunity for local online
advertising is massive and growing, with the market expected to
increase to $38.5 billion by 2016 (BIA/Kelsey, March 2012). As
part of our strategy to leverage our existing competencies in this
area by growing consumer traffic to Patch sites and then
implementing a scaled monetization plan, we have established more
than 850 individual Patches and we are now focusing on increasing
the monetization of those Patches. We believe this strategy is
working, as Patch ended the fourth quarter of 2011 with
triple-digit year-over-year revenue growth and approximately 6,500
advertisers. Furthermore, as of March 2012, Patch had already sold
advertising equivalent to over 80% of its revenue for the entire
year in 2011, illustrating that the growth witnessed in the fourth
quarter has continued into 2012. We expect to remain on this rapid
trajectory of revenue growth and assuming that trend sustains and
is coupled with expense control and continued strong consumer
engagement, we will maintain our course to take advantage of this
opportunity. We believe Patch is exceptionally positioned to grow
in the local space and we believe it will yield meaningful returns
for our shareholders in the years to come.

THE BOARD HAS TAKEN ACTIONS THAT HAVE DELIVERED SIGNIFICANT STOCKHOLDER VALUE

The Board has a clear and consistent pattern of unlocking
significant stockholder value and has increased our cash
position from $100 million as of December 31, 2009 to more than
$400 million as of December 31, 2011:

– In 2010, we DELIVERED $650 MILLION in stockholder value by divesting non-core assets, such as Bebo, buy.at, DMS, ICQ and certain real estate properties.

– In 2011, we INITIATED A $250 MILLION stock repurchase authorization and

– Now, in 2012, we will GENERATE OVER $1 BILLION in stockholder value from the Microsoft patent transaction, and we intend to return a significant portion of these proceeds to our stockholders.

Our Board is committed to creating stockholder value and
nowhere was this more evident than on April 9, 2012, when AOL
announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement with
Microsoft to sell over 800 patents and license 300 additional
patents and patent applications for almost $1.1 billion in cash.
The structure of this tax-efficient transaction, with a combined
sale and licensing agreement, allows AOL to monetize its valuable
patent portfolio without selling the Company’s foundational
patents that span core and strategic technologies. The patent
transaction represented the culmination of a process of exploring
ways to monetize intellectual property that began in October 2011
and was the result of a robust auction process.
AOL will return a significant portion of the sale proceeds from
the patent transaction to stockholders. Having unlocked the
value of the Company’s patent portfolio for stockholders, AOL
intends to return a significant portion of the proceeds to
stockholders and we will determine the method to do so prior to
the closing of the patent transaction. The current Board and
management of AOL have a track record of actively returning
capital to stockholders, with the Company having repurchased more
than 12% of its shares outstanding since August 11, 2011.

AOL’S STOCK PRICE HAS APPRECIATED AS THE MARKET HAS RECOGNIZED THE COMPANY’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS

As AOL’s stock price has appreciated, it has outperformed the
Company’s peers. Our strategy has delivered improved
performance and our stock price has increased. AOL’s stock price
has appreciated approximately 144.6% from its 2011 low and 65.6%
year-to-date through April 20, 2012. Even before the recent
significant increase due to the patent transaction, AOL’s stock
performance through April 5, 2012 represented a 80.2% increase
from its 2011 low and a 22.0% increase year-to-date. Furthermore,
AOL’s stock price has outperformed the market over the last 12
months, appreciating 25.3% relative to (1.3)% and 7.1% returns for
the S&P Midcap 400 index and NASDAQ Composite index, respectively.
Our stock price also outperformed the market prior to the patent
transaction, with our 22.0% increase year-to-date as of April 5,
2012 beating 12.0% and 18.2% returns for the S&P Midcap 400 index
and NASDAQ Composite index, respectively. Your support will
enable us to continue to pursue the strategy that has achieved
these returns.

AOL’S BOARD IS EQUIPPED WITH EXPERIENCE HIGHLY RELEVANT TO OUR STRATEGY, IS INDEPENDENT AND REPRESENTS THE INTERESTS OF ALL STOCKHOLDERS

AOL’s Board has the experience, qualifications and diversity
necessary to provide effective oversight and direction to the
Company. All of AOL’s Directors have extensive executive
and/or public company board experience in a variety of businesses
that are highly relevant to oversight of AOL. These businesses
include display advertising, marketing, journalism, digital media,
television, finance and business development. Your Board has
brought its substantial experience to bear through active
engagement in AOL’s turnaround strategy to create value for
stockholders, with members holding or having held senior
management or board positions at brand-name companies such as
Amazon.com, Automatic Data Processing, Inc., CBS Corporation, Gilt
Groupe, Inc., Google Inc., Kraft Foods Inc., The Proctor & Gamble
Company, and respected organizations including the John S. and
James L. Knight Foundation, and The Paley Center for Media, among
many others.
AOL’s Board is independent and has a stockholder-friendly
corporate governance structure that provides rigorous oversight of
AOL’s strategic direction. Your Board consists of eight
highly-qualified, annually elected Directors, seven of whom are
independent. In addition, all five of the standing committees of
the Board are comprised entirely of independent Directors and the
Board has a Lead Independent Director to ensure effective and
independent oversight of management. Because all of our Directors
have joined the Board within the past three years, each member
brings a fresh outside perspective.
The interests of AOL’s Board and management team are directly
aligned with the interests of our stockholders. All of our
Directors and senior executives own AOL stock. To ensure that the
interests of senior executives are fully aligned with
stockholders, the Company instituted stock ownership guidelines
for AOL senior executives that encourage behaviors that have a
positive influence on stock price appreciation and total
stockholder return, and all executives are in full compliance.
Additionally, AOL Directors and executive officers collectively
hold almost 5% of AOL’s stock. Furthermore, cash compensation
from performance bonuses for senior executives is almost entirely
tied to Adjusted OIBDA and Free Cash Flow. In 2011, over 69% of
our Chairman and CEO’s compensation and 78% of our other senior
executives’ compensation was from equity and cash performance
bonuses as the Company had its second sequential growth in
Adjusted OIBDA in the fourth quarter of 2011 and saw Free Cash
Flow grow year-over-year for the first time since the first
quarter of 2009.

PROTECT YOUR INVESTMENT: SUPPORT YOUR BOARD’S EFFORTS TO ENHANCE STOCKHOLDER VALUE VOTE THE WHITE PROXY CARD TODAY

AOL seeks your support in electing the Company’s eight highly
qualified nominees and your Board unanimously recommends that
stockholders vote “FOR” the Company’s experienced and
highly qualified Director nominees: Tim Armstrong, Richard
Dalzell, Karen Dykstra, Alberto Ibarguen, Susan Lyne, Patricia
Mitchell, Fredric Reynolds and James Stengel.
Your vote is extremely important, no matter how many or how few
shares you own. Whether or not you plan to attend the Annual
Meeting, you have an opportunity to protect your investment in AOL
by voting the WHITE proxy card. We urge you to vote today
by telephone, by Internet, or by signing and dating the enclosed
WHITE proxy card and returning it in the postage-paid envelope
provided. Please do not return or otherwise vote any proxy card
sent to you by Starboard. If you have any questions or need
assistance voting your shares, please contact MacKenzie Partners,
Inc., which is assisting us in connection with this year’s Annual
Meeting, at 800-322-2885.
On behalf of your Board, we thank you for your continued support
of AOL as we work to create a lasting business that provides
stockholders with exceptional value.
Sincerely,
/s/
Tim Armstrong
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

If you have any questions, require assistance in voting your
shares, or need
additional copies of AOL’s proxy materials, please call
MacKenzie Partners
at the phone numbers listed below.
Mackenzie Partners, Inc.
105 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
(212) 929-5500 (call collect)
Or
TOLL-FREE (800) 322-2885
———————————————————————————-

About AOL

Having helped millions of Americans to get online, AOL Inc. AOL -1.34% is on a mission to inform, entertain and connect the world. The home of a world-class collection of premium brands, AOL creates original content that engages audiences on a local and global scale. We help marketers connect with these audiences through effective and engaging digital advertising solutions.

From time to time, we post information about AOL on our investor relations website ( http://ir.aol.com ) and our official corporate blog ( http://blog.aol.com ).

Forward-Looking Statements

This letter may contain “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements concerning anticipated future events and expectations that are not historical facts. Words such as “anticipates,” “estimates,” “expects,” “projects,” “forecasts,” “intends,” “plans,” “will,” “believes” and words and terms of similar substance used in connection with any discussion of future operating or financial performance identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on management’s current expectations and beliefs about future events. As with any projection or forecast, they are inherently susceptible to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. Except as required by law, we are under no obligation to, and expressly disclaim any obligation to, update or alter any forward-looking statements whether as a result of such changes, new information, subsequent events or otherwise. Various factors could adversely affect our operations, business or financial results in the future and cause our actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements, including those factors discussed in detail in the “Risk Factors” section contained in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2011 (the “Annual Report”), filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, we operate a web services company in a highly competitive, rapidly changing and consumer- and technology-driven industry. This industry is affected by government regulation, economic, strategic, political and social conditions, consumer response to new and existing products and services, technological developments and, particularly in view of new technologies, the continued ability to protect intellectual property rights. Our actual results could differ materially from management’s expectations because of changes in such factors. Achieving our business and financial objectives, including growth in operations and maintenance of a strong balance sheet and liquidity position, could be adversely affected by the factors discussed or referenced under the “Risk Factors” section contained in the Annual Report as well as, among other things: 1) changes in our plans, strategies and intentions; 2) continual decline in market valuations associated with our cash flows and revenues; 3) the impact of significant acquisitions, dispositions and other similar transactions; 4) our ability to attract and retain key employees; 5) any negative unintended consequences of cost reductions, restructuring actions or similar efforts, including with respect to any associated savings, charges or other amounts; 6) market adoption of new products and services; 7) the failure to meet earnings expectations; 8) asset impairments; 9) decreased liquidity in the capital markets; 10) our ability to access the capital markets for debt securities or bank financings; 11) the impact of “cyber-warfare” or terrorist acts and hostilities and 12) the approval of the patent transaction with Microsoft Corporation by antitrust authorities and the satisfaction of the other closing conditions to that transaction as well as to factors that could affect the manner, timing and amount of the return of any of the sale proceeds to AOL shareholders including the need for AOL to retain cash for its business or to satisfy liabilities.

Additional Information

In connection with the solicitation of proxies, AOL has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, a definitive proxy statement and other relevant documents concerning the proposals to be presented at AOL’s 2012 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. The proxy statement contains important information about AOL and the 2012 Annual Meeting. In connection with the 2012 Annual Meeting, AOL has mailed the definitive proxy statement to stockholders. In addition, AOL files annual, quarterly and special reports, proxy statements and other information with the SEC. You are urged to read the proxy statement and other information because they contain important information about AOL and the proposals to be presented at the 2012 Annual Meeting. These documents are available free of charge at the SEC’s website ( www.sec.gov ) or from AOL at our investor relations website ( http://ir.aol.com ). The contents of the websites referenced herein are not deemed to be incorporated by reference into the proxy statement.

AOL and its directors, executive officers and certain employees may be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies from AOL’s stockholders in connection with the election of directors and other matters to be proposed at the 2012 Annual Meeting. Information regarding the interests, if any, of these directors, executive officers and specified employees is included in the definitive proxy statement and other materials filed by AOL with the SEC.

SOURCE: AOL, Inc.

Media:
AOL, Inc.
Maureen Sullivan, 212-206-5030
Maureen.Sullivan@teamaol.com
or
Investor Relations:
AOL, Inc.
Eoin Ryan, 212-206-5025
Eoin.Ryan@teamaol.com

AOL has had a few knocks from shareholders over whether it’s on the right track with its content strategy — a mix of high-volume, ad-based websites that cover lifestyle, tech, travel, news and more — but CEO Tim Armstrong has stayed the course, and today the company is launching a video portal that it hopes will prove that the value of those holdings extends beyond even what you see on the sites themselves.

AOL On, as the new site is called, is a premium content portal that will work across desktop, mobile and tablet optimized sites and apps, as well as connected TV devices. And the guy running it, Ran Harnevo, SVP of AOL On, makes clear that it is nothing like a YouTube wannabe: “No dogs on skateboards, and no upload button,” he says.

Instead, it brings together all the video offerings from AOL’s various content properties, including sites like HuffingtonPost, Engadget, AOL.com and (of course) TechCrunch — 14 properties in all with a total reach of 57 million U.S. consumers monthly. It will also bring together content that once existed on AOL Video, goviral, StudioNow and AOL HD brands.

But wait! There’s more: it will also include a program of commissioned, original content. Initially that list will include mainly factual/unscripted programming, shows with titles like “Digital Justice,” “Little Women Big Cars” (that’s me! no, just kidding) and “Next Door Hero.” It will also include at least one comedy show thrown into the mix: “Fetching,” written by Amy Harris of Sex and the City fame. The whole of AOL On is the brainchild of the team from 5min, the video syndication network that AOL bought for $65 million, coincidentally at the same exact time as it bought TechCrunch.

Another contrast to YouTube: a focus on a simplified interface. While the homepage will have a search window that lets you access some 320,000 videos at launch, AOL On will also be offering a curated selection as well: simple tabs with subject headings like lifestyle and health will take you to a selection of videos that will change regularly; and a playlist on the homepage will focus on a slide-deck of nine different pieces of content.

AOL’s idea here is to capitalize on the growing interest in watching online video, and specifically professionally produced online video — evidenced as well by YouTube now moving into a more premium content channels; sites like Hulu continuing to gain ever more momentum; and, closer to home, HuffPo launching the “HuffingtonPost Streaming Network.”

While some of this video under the AOL umbrella may not be getting the audience scale it needs to monetize that well on individual sites, the hope seems to be that if you consolidate all of it on to a single platform, that will create the kind of audience needed to drive much better returns on ads. Taken together AOL says the holdings catapult it into a top-10 video platform, with  861 million video streams per month, and a total of 2.4 billion minutes consumed.

For now, the site will be run as the main websites are — no paywalls and funded by ads, which will come in the form of pre-rolls to the videos. When I asked whether there were plans to also introduce paid services into the mix, Harnevo would not rule it out.

This just in: one chapter of AOL’s patent journey is coming to an end. The company is selling 800 patents to Microsoft for just north of $1 billion: $1.056 billion in cash to be exact.

Tim Armstrong, the CEO of AOL (which owns TechCrunch), says that the company will continue to hold on to about 300 patents and patent applications after the sale. These span “core and strategic technologies” around advertising, search and content generation, he noted in a memo to employees. [Full memo below the break.]

The sale to Microsoft came after a “competitive auction process” the company noted in a statement. It also includes the sale of the stock of an AOL subsidiary (unspecified which in the statement) “upon which AOL expects to record a capital loss for tax purposes and as a result, cash taxes in connection with the sale should be immaterial.”

AOL also said it “expects to utilize approximately $40 million of its existing deferred tax assets, representing approximately 20 percent of its total deferred tax assets, to offset any ordinary income taxes resulting from the license of its remaining patent portfolio.” We have reached out to try to get more specifics on the subsidiary and so licensee information for the remaining patents.

The sale is expected to be completed by the end of 2012.

The patent sale marks the end to a lot of speculation around what AOL would do with its patent trove. There had been pressure from shareholders, led by Starboard Value, to realize some of the value from those patents, starting last year, when investors began to grumble that the company was not focused enough on what it could be doing to make more money, and not monetizing fast enough on its growing media portfolio (of which TC is a part…).

The patents also came into question in March with the news that Yahoo was suing Facebook over several patent infringements.

Given that AOL’s portfolio also stretches into similar areas of social media and information organization, there were questions of whether AOL would also follow suit in a march to the courts — another route to realizing value from those patents.

The portfolio sold today patents related to advertising, search, content generation/management, social networking, mapping, multimedia/streaming and security, among other things. AOL has also received a perpetual license for all the patents as part of the deal, Armstrong said in his memo.

The sale not only neutralizes the possibility of AOL using those patents in a litigious way against Facebook (or others as the case may be), but it may also mean that Facebook is out of infringement hot water, as far as those patents are concerned: Microsoft became a shareholder in the company when it bought a 1.6 percent stake of Facebook back in 2007 for $240 million.

The question of what Microsoft intends to do with these patents is the next big question. Among the patents are several related to mobile and internet messaging (via AOL’s acquisition of ICQ). Others cover areas like location-based services and personalized content delivery. The most patents of all, however, come in the generic category of “online communications”, according to analysis from Envision IP.

The full memo:

As we continue to execute on our strategy of building premium brands, services, and advertising into world-class businesses, we also continue to unlock value in our assets that make the company stronger and show meaningful gains for AOL employees and shareholders.  Today, I’m excited to share that we achieved another critical milestone in our growth trajectory.

This morning, we announced that we’ve agreed to sell 800 of our patents and their related applications to Microsoft for $1.056 billion in cash. Most importantly, for the future growth trajectory and innovation for our business, we will continue to hold a significant patent portfolio of over 300 patents and patent applications spanning core and strategic technologies, including advertising, search, content generation/management, social networking, mapping, multimedia/streaming and security among others. AOL also received a perpetual license to the patents being sold to Microsoft, which allows us to continue to innovate and drive strategic growth across all areas of our business.

This process of unlocking the value of our patent portfolio, that we began last fall, is a significant example of focusing our time and energy around strengthening our company’s balance sheet and unlocking value for our shareholders. Most importantly, this is another step forward for the comeback of AOL and allows us to remain laser-focused on our strategy and future growth. As always, we know that our growth will be driven by the successful execution against our strategy and we will continue to take aggressive steps to move the company forward.

Huge thanks to the teams that worked tirelessly during this intense process – their world-class effort resulted in a big win for our company. The AOL Board of Directors, Legal, Finance and Tax teams, and our outside advisors were super-stars. We are a partnership company and our team stayed together every step of the way and performed at the top of their game.

Additionally, we worked with a great Microsoft team on this deal – they were organized, professional and smart. When I spoke to Steve Ballmer over the weekend I commended him on his team and how great they were to work with in this process.

We will be holding a global employee call on Wednesday at 11am ET to talk about the news we have announced today in detail, as well as discuss our company goals for Q2, top box priorities and hear updates from our leadership team on progress we are already making in Q2. We’re already seeing strong momentum this quarter on our focus areas. Details for the call will be posted to the Inside, and please bring your questions as we’ll have time for Q&A.

Time to get back to the core business – delighting consumers and customers.  We are starting Q2 off with a major win.  Let’s keep it going and nail all of our Q2 goals – looking forward to reviewing with all of you on Wednesday on our global call.

Go AOL – TA

You know every once in a while you come across news about your company and it turns out your boss is no longer your boss anymore. If you’re me this probably happens to you every three months.

Anyways this morning I read in the media that Arianna Huffington (who I think used to be my boss) gained more control within Aol and then subsequently read that actually she had been “demoted.” Okay truth please guys?!

Well, because no one ever tells us anything because we’ll publish it, I dug around and found out that we (TechCrunch) are no longer a part of Huffington Post Media Group, and neither is Engadget, Moviephone, Stylist, AOL Video, AOL.com and TUAW.

Additionally, divisions of the Huffington Post originally folded into Aol like tech and communications will now be re-instated into the Huffington Post, and the HuffPost property will remain an independent entity within Aol, sort of like the Basque region of Spain. 

Business Insider says that all the non-HuffPost blogs will now report to a man named Jay Hirsch. While I don’t know any Jay Hirsch, I do know a Jay Kirsch — a non-editorial Aol executive who is the SVP & General Manager of the Autos/ Finance/ Industry/ Jobs/ Real Estate division of Aol and an awesome writer. No really, he is a great writer.

Even though Jay is an aforementioned great writer, he will be looking for an Editorial Manager to fill a role under him and deal directly with each individual site, according to sources. Kirsch wouldn’t comment. Hirsch, whoever he is, also wasn’t available for comment.

What does this mean for TechCrunch AND YOU? Well I’m assuming we’ll be saying Jay or whoever’s name instead of Arianna’s when we call Aol to change our System Passwords once a quarter. Arianna was rarely involved in our day-to-day anyways (well except for that one time) and now we’ll have no Aol editorial oversight, at least that we know of. 

AND YOU? Well it probably doesn’t mean very much to you at all.

For those who may have thought that last week’s patent lawsuit filed by Yahoo against Facebook was a one-off, here are some developments that indicate that we may be seeing more of this to come:

Facebook has now been sued by Mitel, an Ottawa, Canada-based enterprise IT company; and there is emerging evidence of others, including AOL, filing fresh patent applications to cover ever more aspects of social media services.

The Mitel Networks suit, filed on March 16, 2012, in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, alleges infringement of two different patents, one for an “automatic web page generator” and another for “pro-active features for telephony.” They date from 1999 and 2007.

And two patent applications filed last week come from Compass Labs and AOL and respectively cover “user interest analysis and systems” and “content publication activity by a user.”

Mitel says in the suit that Facebook infringed and continues to infringe on its patents. Mitel said that it had originally brought this to light in a letter dated July 2011, and another in September 2011.

“Mitel has suffered and will continue to suffer damage,” the company’s lawyers write. “Mitel is entitled to recover damages adequate to compensate for that infringement in an amount that will be ascertained at trial, but in no event less than a reasonable royalty.”

We have contacted Mitel and the company is not providing much in the way of comment on the suit, neither to us or to The Next Web, which also reported on it, except to confirm the filing. But we have seen that Mitel is not new to this game. Most recently, in March, it settled a case against a company called Klausner Technologies over visual voicemail patents.

Meanwhile, two more patent applications have emerged that also point to potential actions against Facebook and perhaps other social networks.

AOL (owner of TechCrunch), last week assured investors that it had a strategy for its patents. Some of that strategy is getting a bit clearer: on March 15, the company filed a patent application around using messaging to alert users when another user has had some activity on the network. From the patent application:

Collecting and distributing information related to recent content publication activity of an instant messaging (IM) user provides other users in a network with timely, relevant information about people known to the user or within the same social network. A user participating in a social network can quickly and efficiently perceive new information related to other users (referred to as co-users) in a social network by reviewing the co-users’ recent content publication activity. A user may be made able to do so without requiring the co-user to send a communication directly to the user regarding the new facts or new content, and also without requiring the user to actively browse or request information about the co-user.

Interestingly, the filing looks like a revised application, in which some 51 of the original 52 claims have been removed. One patent lawyer told TechCrunch that the AOL filing comes from a line of related cases all filed around 2006; that this application appears to be related to patents already owned by AOL; and that this newest application had gotten the “treatment”:

“It is being honed, specifically, to read on Facebook,” he said. “The claim very clearly has been crafted/tweaked to read on the wall updates that you get when someone posts something new in their status update.  This shows: 1) observation/monitoring of FB features; 2) active efforts to picket fence around these features by AOL.”

He adds that this is another sign of AOL paying attention to Facebook, “which, usually, is a precursor (much like foreshocks) to a larger ‘event’ later on.”

Compass Labs, filer of the second patent application, is also homing in on social media, but it’s less clear that this is directly related to a potential litigation, says the lawyer.

It may have taken longer than even its own creators might have guessed, but it’s finally come to pass: Brizzly, the Twitter/Facebook client that was bought by AOL as part of Thing Labs in September 2010, is shutting up shop at the end of March, with the news announced last night on Brizzly’s blog by Grant Shellen, and co-signed by Zachary Taylor and Jason Shellen, Brizzly’s and Thing Labs’ co-founders.

Behind the move to shut down Brizzly is another story, it seems, about what is going on with AOL and its social media ambitions for its instant messaging service, AIM.

Since the acquisition of Think Labs, the team, according to the blog, has been putting most of their efforts into AIM.

“Once we set to the task at hand—improving the hell out of AIM—we had little to no time to work on Brizzly, and it became clear that the new things we’re working on are far more worth our time and attention,” Shellen wrote.

That has included a re-vamp, launched last month, which has tried to make the product significantly more “social”: there is now an expanded group chat function; as well as updates on when people have mentioned, liked, followed or commented on your Twitter, Facebook and Instagram content; and email alerts for AOL Mail and Gmail.

But it is not a replacement for Brizzly because the one crucial thing it doesn’t do is incorporate those social media feeds themselves. Why wasn’t that included? It might appear in a later incarnation, but for now the impression is that AOL, ideally, would like to keep all potential interactions in its own garden. (And in any case, that is what is happening as a result.)

Yes, it seems that AOL definitely wants to keep its place at the social media table. However, its chair seems to be getting increasingly creaky.

AOL does not say how many active users there are on AIM right now, but the picture doesn’t look very good. In the company’s last quarterly earnings, AOL noted that AIM numbers were in decline (with those declines being offset by the Huffington Post Media Group, of which TechCrunch is a part).

There are also reports that AOL is gearing up for a round of layoffs that could include AIM itself. A report in Bloomberg notes that Jason Shellen, the ex-Thing Labs founder who now runs AIM, might seek a buyout in the next few weeks. Update: Jason Shellen himself has confirmed he is leaving AOL in early April. “The new AIM is looking great & is in good hands so I’ve decided to leave AOL. I’m moving on in early April & am excited about the future!” he wrote on Twitter.

ComScore (yes, they can be problematic) estimated that as of October last year, AIM’s active users in the U.S. were at 4.9 million — a decline of 65 percent a year ago (that’s not including mobile and tablet access, just PC). It’s now third behind Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger from Microsoft.

I don’t know how many users Brizzly had (I’m trying to find out and will update this when and if I do), but it was a cool and useful service. Now, the talented folks from Thing Labs, rather than working on totally new, groundbreaking products, are clearly doing some interesting work in getting the decidedly more legacy AIM up to speed. But whether all that effort will be enough to bring up user numbers — and subsequently create revenue streams — remains to be seen.

A worrying trend for this strategy is that in general the IM market appears to be getting less popular — possibly propelled by users more focused on Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the new guard. ComScore notes that usage of IM services in the U.S. dropped by 31 percent over the year to 36.8 million visitors.

Worldwide, where AOL ranks in 10th place among IM providers, there are some interesting pockets of growth, but they are mainly outside of the U.S. and in China and Russia, says comScore, which provided us with comparative numbers between January 2011 and January 2012:

In other words, a social media plan focused around AIM is either very, very visionary or going totally against what appear to be pretty strong market indications.

This funny little piece of email just got forwarded to me …

From: “****, ***”
Date: February 3, 2012 10:11:04 AM PST
To: Greg Barto [@ TechCrunch]
Subject: NapQuest

Hey Greg

It is one of our goals to get a “nap room” set-up in every location. Basically, it’s a closed room where we would put a chaise or couch, darken the windows and allow people to nap as the [sic] like. This is high on the priority list for Arianna and your office is one of the few where we don’t yet have it in place.

When I visited your office on Wednesday, I looked around. It strikes me that the room (3rd office from the back corner) might be a good choice?

There are currently a couple of desks in there we would need to remove. Then I would purchase the furniture and arrange to have the window glass tinted.

What do you think? I just need your agreement to move ahead and I will coordinate making it happen. Let me know.

Thanks,

**** ****
Sr. Facilities Manager, PA/SF
Corporate Services, AOL Inc.
395 Page Mill Road Palo Alto, CA 94306

After making a bunch of “nap room” jokes and laughing uncontrollably like a hyperactive child around the office, I’ve finally figured out why this “high Arianna priority” (LOL) strikes me as so funny — other than the fact THAT IT IS ACTUALLY CALLED NapQuest.

This is Silicon Valley, where we herald founders like Jack Dorsey for working 16 hour days (at not one, but two! companies). People at startups are never not working.

Silicon Valley absolutely, positively doesn’t need a nap room because in theory we don’t sleep, let alone nap (and if we do need to nap — like in an emergency — we take that shiz home, far far away from hungry competitors!).

Please Aol Mr. Sr. Facilities Manager, take that money and buy us a bunch of Diet Coke to drink late at night or that great beef jerky we used to have or a copyediting slave intern or passes to Burning Man or anything but a room specifically designed for being less productive.

Oh sure, it could be worse. At least they’re not trying to install one of these things. 

Update: PandoDaily founder Sarah Lacy weighs in on the tragic potential fate of her old office.

Image: Roger Jegg – Fotodesign-Jegg.de

AOL reported better than expected fourth quarter earnings this morning. The company, which owns TechCrunch, reported revenue of $576.8 million, which is down 3 percent from Q4 2010 revenue of $596 million. Earnings came in at $0.23 per share, or $22.8 million, which is down 66 percent from $66.2 million a year ago. Analysts expected $0.16 per share.

AOL says total revenue decline was its lowest rate of revenue decline in 5 years. While global advertising revenue was 10%, subscription revenue declined by 18%. AOl also saw a 15% growth in global display revenue and a 20% growth in third party network revenue.

“AOL took a large step forward in Q4 and I am very pleased with the way we ended the year,” said AOL’s CEO Tim Armstrong. “Our Q4 results highlight AOL’s ability to methodically improve our consumer offering and financial performance. We continue to invest in AOL and will continue to improve our operations during 2012.”

The company says that traffic was flat from Q3 2011 as “growth in the Huffington Post Media Group sites offset declines at MapQuest and AIM.”

Now this is just hilarious. Apparently this Arizona woman has been paying for “email” for almost a decade — even though it’s been available free for a while and free for Aol users since 2006.  According to a year-old “New Yorker” article by Ken Auletta, over 75% of the dial-up portion of Aol’s 3.5 million subscribers are like Traci Casale. So why are these idiots people still paying for email? I mean you know things are bad when a publication called “Arizona Family” is making fun of you.

Well actually Casale and others like her are not being charged for email, they’re technically still paying for the dial-up plan they signed up for originally, which they didn’t cancel after Aol made its software package free.

“One day I just looked at, you know, you’re going through your bills and every bit helps right now and I’m like, ‘Why am I paying for email? No one else is,’” Casale says naively in the report.

Maybe it’s not entirely her fault? According to one source, Aol intentionally doesn’t try too hard to educate these legacy customers about their email package now being free. We also heard that when Aol came out with the new “Project Phoenix” Mail product in 2010, many in Aol Consumer Applications wanted to market it as being free but their suggestions were overturned by higher-ups as the percentage of misinformed subscribers still ponying up just to use Aol Mail is very profitable.

Aol’s over 3.5 million dial-up subscribers brought in $191 million in revenue last quarter — which is still where the majority of Aol’s profits come from according to Auletta.

The reason why these local news reports are so sad is that even Cave Creek, Arizonans have figured out dial-up is a dying business. Sure Aol tries to sugarcoat this in earnings reports by boasting about its lowered subscription churn rate, but in plain English this basically means that there are fewer people leaving because there are fewer people to leave.

“AOL Mail is a web-based product that is free to all users regardless of their paid relationship with us,” Aol PR told me when I inquired as to why these headlines (somewhat mistakenly) accuse them of charging for it. Well, that explanation is much more clear than this vaguely-worded “Project Phoenix” press release.

Disclosure (in case you live under a rock): Techcrunch is owned by Aol.

]]> http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/04/aol-mail/feed/ 0 Screen Shot 2012-01-04 at 7.19.39 PM atsotsis http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/04/aol-mail/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TechCrunch/Aol/~3/VkdDGf6ihOc/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/30/aol-zombies/#comments Fri, 30 Dec 2011 23:35:13 +0000 Alexia Tsotsis http://techcrunch.com/?p=476047 In case you haven't noticed ;), it's an especially slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow time for the tech industry. So slow that some Aol employees -- the only one I recognize is Sol Lipman -- made a video about the recent Aol talent exodus, using ZOMBIES as a metaphor for all the people who've decided to leave Aol. ]]>

In case you haven’t noticed ;), it’s an especially slooooooooooooooooooooow time for the tech industry. So slow that some Aol employees — the only one I recognize is Sol Lipman — made a video about the recent Aol talent exodus, using ZOMBIES as a metaphor for all the people who’ve decided to leave Aol.

If I understand the video correctly, the zombie attack was apparently sparked by some design changes made to the Huffington Post (rimshot), which turn recent departures Brad Garlinghouse and Kiersten Hollars into zombies, who in turn zombify the rest of Aol’s Palo Alto HQ.”We should have quit when Maser left!” is a reference to Aol VP Mike Maser, who was formerly at Digg.

While the video honestly isn’t that funny, it is sort of endearing, as the employees come to realize that the only way to fend off the zombie attacks (/talent exodus) is with “quality” Aol products like Editions — which literally kill zombies in the movie.* Using the acronym MAMA (Mail Aim Mobile About.me) to fight of the undead, the Aol* survivors proclaim 2012 as the year the company turns around, “Our friends may have been eaten by Zombies, but we’re still going to have a lot of fun.”

Awwwwwwwwww.

* Which is weird, because they’re inadvertently comparing Aol products to a bullet to the head, but I digress.

*Yes, I know it’s officially AOL (not Aol), but I just write it this way to piss off Robin — who for some reason is really stubborn about us spelling it in all UPPERCASE.

Ex-Googler and previously head of AOL Media and Studios – and I guess you could say the former boss of my boss’s boss – David Eun has been appointed Executive Vice President at consumer electronics giant Samsung Electronics.

At Samsung, Eun will be helping the company develop a ‘global media strategy’ for its array of digital TVs, smartphones, tablets and other connected devices.

Eun left – or was forced to leave – AOL in February 2011 after the company’s Media Group was restructured around Huffington Post after the latter’s $315 million acquisition by AOL.

There have been a number of rumors circulating around Yahoo, Microsoft, and Aol of late, most of them focusing on a potential Aol/Yahoo merger, or Yahoo’s acquisition by Aol or Microsoft, etc. Well, it seems the companies have officially become linked, but they’ve run into each other’s arms not by way of M&A, but by way of display ads. Yes, the three internet behemoths today announced agreements that they hope will improve the process of buying and selling premium online display inventory. In other words, the agreements will allow each to offer the other’s display ads to their respective customers.

With agencies and advertisers now able to pick and choose between Yahoo’s Network Plus, Aol’s Advertising.com and Microsoft’s Media network, each of which has different strengths in data, optimization, packaging, etc., this strategic partnership creates somewhat of a mega ad network. Online advertising is all about scale, and with this threefold growth in inventory, the three companies are looking to more quickly achieve the scale that is far more difficult to reach alone.

While the companies hope that this agreement will drive better returns for their customers (see Yahoo Executive VP Ross Levinsohn’s statement here), it remains to be seen just how “premium” the partnership’s ads will be. Premium ad inventories are inherently a product of scarcity, which seems to be a bit at odds with the scale/network approach the companies are taking, where nobody really knows what they’re selling.

What’s more, while this may improve the process of buying and selling online display inventory, it’s also a play to fend off the meteoric rise of Facebook (and, in turn, Google, which owns a 75 percent share of search advertising). Really, everyone is spending more time on Facebook, what with their measly 800 million users, and advertisers are following them there. To that point, Facebook now accounts for one out of every three ad impressions in the U.S. Up until now, no other web property in the U.S. really comes close. (See our coverage here.)

Thanks to the tables below from eMarketer, we see that Facebook leads the way in net display revenues in the U.S. with over $2 billion this year. Yahoo comes in second, with Microsoft and Aol far behind Google in third and fourth. The same ranking is true for share of the online display ad market, with Facebook holding 16 percent over Yahoo’s 13 percent — and eMarketer expects both Google and Facebook’s share to increase significantly next year to 19 percent and 12 percent, putting Google neck-and-neck with Yahoo.

What’s more, in terms of growth in online display advertising, Facebook saw a 66 percent increase this year, far outpacing the rest of the pack. I’ll hold off there, because you probably get the picture. Yahoo has the biggest ad network in terms of revenues and marketshare of this new ad trifecta, which certainly makes this an advantageous partnership for Microsoft and Aol, at least from this perspective.

But, in the end, at least for the foreseeable future, it’s hard to see this as anything but a bandaid. Facebook’s growth in display advertising isn’t slowing down any time soon.

AOL reported third-quarter earnings this morning. Revenue was down 6 percent to $531.7 million. The company swung to a loss in terms of net income, losing $2.6 million, or $0.02 per share. Analysts expected a loss of loss of 7 cents per share. Disclosure: AOL is the parent company of TechCrunch.

But AOL was able to grow global advertising by 8%, driven by 28% and 15% growth in third party network and global display advertising revenue Tim Armstrong, Chairman and CEO said in a statement: “We continue to build strong consumer experiences as we execute our strategy to build the premium branded media company for the internet. Our share repurchases underlie our belief in the value of AOL and our strategy.”

Search and contextual revenue declined 15%. In local, Patch surpassed 10 million monthly unique visitors and 10,000 bloggers on its platform. Armstrong added about Patch, “We believe it’s a very good investment.” He added, “We’re headed to being one of the largest local and national providers of content.” The platform also has around 5,000 advertisers.

The Huffington Post launched or relaunched 18 properties and surpassed 35 million monthly unique visitors in Q3. AOL’s traffic as a whole was flat for the quarte; properties saw 107 million average monthly unique users, up 1 percent from last year. Traffic to the Huffington Post Media Group came in at 97 million unique users per month, flat from last year.

He also said the company is adding social and commerce components to advertising, and said that the AOL will be debuting a new social ad format for advertisers soon.

As of September 30, 2011, AOL had $444.1 million of cash.

Traditional publishers and fledgling digital publications alike are trying to find the best ways to monetize their content on the Web and take advantage of the benefits offered by hyperlocal content and the targeted advertising that (should) come with it. PaperG, an advertising technology startup founded in 2007, is trying to become that go-to solution for small and established online publishers that are looking for a quick and easy solution for their hyperlocal advertising needs.

PaperG has built a solution that automates local ad creation, sales, and management for these online publishers that automatically creates a custom rich-media ad for any local business in less than 60 seconds, according to PaperG Founder and CEO Victor Wong. In August of last year, the startup added well-known publishers including the Los Angeles Times, MediaNews Group, Lee Enterprises, and Sun Times Media Group to its roster of publishing partners, which also includes names like Hearst, McClatchy, Gannett, New York Times Regional, Boston Globe, Newsday and New York Post.

Today, the startup is announcing that it will be providing its local display advertising technology to another big player in the local news space: AOL Inc.’s hyperlocal platform of sites, Patch.com. (Disclosure: TechCrunch is owned by Aol.) PaperG’s technology will be released in over 100 of Patch’s markets, enabling Patch sales teams access instant ad creation, management, and optimization for their litany of local advertisers.

The value proposition here for Aol’s Patch is that PaperG’s technology, which supports Flash, HTML5, and mobile ad units, can automatically build a custom ad for any local business in a jiffy (an example of which you can check out to the right). All that a sales rep or advertiser needs is the business’ name and address, and PaperG’s solution crawls the Web, aggregating all the important info for the business, including reviews, location, etc., and presto, it creates a display ad without the sales rep having so much as to open a new tab.

The key here, Wong says, is to supercharging sales and giving small newspapers and publishers an easy ad-creation platform without having to know how to code or create ad copy themselves. In the majority of situations, he says, the ad that’s created ends up being the final product, although teams then have the ability to tweak the design, color, ad copy, and so on, to complete the optimization process.

Wong says that PaperG wants local merchants to be able to target these ads as much as possible, through geo targeting, targeting by category, to enable small businesses to target the right audience and interest group the first time without the hassle. For merchants, the solution is absolutely free, and for publishers, the ability to avoid having to pay $50 for every ad that a solution creates is a huge leg up.

Thus, to make money, PaperG creates these commercial agreements, like the one it’s formed with Patch, to make its technology accessible to the variety of local outlets that are seeing syndicated content from the publisher. Those publishers have the opportunity to offer hyperlocal, targeted ads to an audience that is (they hope) far more likely to click on ad for their local pizza shop, which in turn makes those local businesses benefiting from this discounted advertising happy campers.

And so far, the strategy seems to be working, as Wong says that it’s technology has been able to double the close rates for sales reps. While Google has a strong business with AdWords and is leading search engine advertising by a long shot, Wong says that no one is really doing this for local display advertising, which remains one of the largest white spaces in online advertising, he says. With a solution that simplifies local advertising for online publishers and the small businesses they represent, this PaperG’s strategy potentially has some legs.

And considering the fact that Patch did its due diligence and considered a number of solutions before finally deciding to go with PaperG, the partnership is further confirmation that it they just might be onto something.

PaperG raised $1.1 million from LaunchCapital, Brian O’Kelley, Mark Potts, and Steve Taylor back in December 2009. For more on the startup, check ‘em out at home here.

TechCrunch TV is now really TechCrunch TV. When TCTV launched last year, the focus was on viewing our videos on the computer. Not on TV. Ok, we called it “TechCrunch TV” because it sounded a lot better than “TechCrunch Video”. But today, we are launching on the AOL HD platform and you can find us on your connected TV set.

Our videos are live on Roku, Boxee, Divx and Yahoo Connected TV platforms. Together, these platforms reach over 12 million devices. And that number is growing. A new report by Strategy Analytics says 42 million homes in the US and Europe are now using Connected TV devices. Don’t be surprised if more platforms get added to AOL HD as well. (AOL, the owner of TechCrunch, didn’t want me to say anything about that. Oh well.)

You can find these shows on the channel:

• Founder Stories: Chris Dixon takes and gives advice to entrepreneurs.
• Fly or Die: John Biggs and Erick Schonfeld give a “fly” or “die” verdict to new products.
• Keen On: Andrew Keen interviews leading thinkers and writers about technology issues.

We are working to get other shows like TC Cribs on the channel, but AOL HD plays only HD content and Cribs is shot in SD. We’ll be changing that soon.

Both on-stage and backstage videos from our Disrupt conferences are available, so you can watch those events from your living room.

The TechCrunch videos appear under AOL HD’s Technology channel, along with other videos from Engadget and Translogic. Robert DelaCruz, General Manager for AOL HD, says “I’m very pleased to include TechCrunch to the channel lineup. TechCrunch further strengthens AOL HD’s technology offering with the latest in technology, from breaking news to startups to gadgets.”

If you want to learn more or get installation instructions, head over to hd.aol.com. Otherwise, lean back and start watching us on your TV. Of course, you can continue to watch on your computer, mobile phone or tablet as well. Those hackers out there who were already using Airplay, or Apple TV, or other means to view our content on TV, will now be joined by a much larger group who can see TechCrunch TV on TV.

Salim Ismail has one of the liveliest minds and most eclectic resumes in the Valley. The founding Executive Director of Singularity University and the founder of a number of interesting start-ups including Angstro and PubSub Concepts, he was also a VP at Yahoo! where he launched and ran Brickhouse, their internal incubator.

So, borrowing a familiar work from ex-Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, I asked Ismail if Yahoo! was now fucked. Yes, he confirmed, it was. And so, he added, was AOL and most other companies struggling to reinvent themselves in today’s increasingly brutal competitive landscape.

Vulgarity aside, Ismail’s message is incredibly important for every technology company struggling to maintain their innovation. Today’s Facebook or Twitter, he told me, is tomorrow’s Yahoo! So how, exactly, can a company build innovation into its DNA? What Salim Ismail says may seem, in some ways, obvious – but it’s actually the difference between Yahoo! and Google – the multi billion dollar difference between glittering success and abject failure in today’s creatively destructive economy.

For more on Salim Ismail’s interview, watch the video in this post from yesterday on the future of university education.

The Huffington Post Media Group (which also owns TechCrunch) has teamed up with newspaper, magazine and website publisher Le Monde and Les Nouvelles Editions Indépendantes (LNEI) to launch ‘Le Huffington Post’, a French edition of the news and opinion portal. The new joint venture is currently recruiting editors to prepare for a launch before the end of 2011.

Each of the three aforementioned partners will be shareholders in Le Huffington Post.

The French site will combine local editorial resources of Le Monde, one of France’s leading dailies, with The HuffPo’s typical combination of reporting, aggregation and discussion services. LNEI will also contribute original editorial content through its network of journalists and bloggers.

M Publicite, also part of The Le Monde group, will partner on the site’s advertising.

Huffington Post Canada launched in May, while the site landed in the UK last July.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it looks like they haven’t yet secured either LeHuffingtonPost.com or LeHuffingtonPost.fr. Not a great start.

Yahoo and ABC just wrapped up a press conference at ABC’s Times Square studio to announce a major partnership between the two companies: they’re launching a new ‘News and Information Alliance’ that will see ABC News get a much more prominent presence throughout Yahoo. ABC News will also be launching several ‘web-first’ video series’ that will be appearing on Yahoo.

In short, Yahoo is reinventing its news site: ABC is bringing the premium content to the table, Yahoo is bringing its 100 million users.

A video played at the beginning of the conference made the mission clear: Yahoo and ABC News are gunning for CNN and other online news portals like The Huffington Post. To do that, Yahoo is augmenting its news articles with content produced by ABC News, including several new ‘web-first’ digital series featuring ABC News’s anchors. The video denounced the “blitz of headlines and information” seen across the web (they have a point), and says that the team are setting out to create richer stories.

The first video to be streamed as part of the partnership will be a live stream of George Stephanopoulos interviewing President Obama beginning at 2:35 PM EST this afternoon.

Yahoo and ABC say that “creativity is key” in the alliance — they’re looking to create content specifically suited for Yahoo’s web properties, as well as tablet and other mobile form factors. GoodMorningAmerica.com will be launching as a new portal on Yahoo News.

To monetize, at least initially, Yahoo and ABC will be selling advertising against its premium content. I asked if there were any plans to eventually monetize this content through in-app purchases and/or subscriptions. Ross Levinsohn, executive VP of Americas at Yahoo, didn’t rule it out, but says he isn’t going to predict the future. My hunch? Yep.

So is this a good move? I like it, though I want to see just what form this originally produced content takes, how long it remains exclusive on the web, and how much creativity will actually be involved. I think news on the web still has a long way to go, and more high-quality, premium content online is a good thing — and inevitable.

One reporter asked a series of questions about Carol Bartz, eventually asking Levinsohn if he’s gunning to take the helm. Levinsohn says this is the best job he’s had and gave an anecdote about his work history and talked about building good experiences (sounds like he’s saying “no”, but I’m not sure he explicitly said that at any point in his answer).

The Huffington Post Media Group (HPMG), which I should point out is owned by our parent company AOL, is to announce an acquisition today, along with some key stats, hires and new site launches. Kara Swisher obtained and published the press release.

HMPG has acquired Localocracy, an “online town common” where registered voters weigh in on local issues and come together to solve problems in their communities, using their real names.

According to the release, The Huffington Post has recruited its leadership team (founders Conor White-Sullivan and Aaron Soules, and tech lead Jay Boice).

According to Swisher, HPMG paid less than $1 million for Localocracy.

The Huffington Post is also launching four sites this week (Huff/Post50, HuffPost Gay Voices, HuffPost Weddings and HuffPost High School), the latest of 21 new verticals since the merger with AOL, which occurred last March.

In addition, HMPG says it has hired former NYT blogger Lisa Belkin as Senior Columnist; she’ll be covering parenting, work/life balance and family.

Finally, The Huffington Post says it has recorded its largest number of unique monthly visitors ever (37 million), and for the first time topped 1 billion page views.

The network also posted a record 5.1 million comments in August 2011.