AOL: The gigablog
: Rafat Ali brings together two stories and finds a trend in AOL giving up content creation to instead package content. It’s going to be a weblog.
First, company chief Dick Parsons is quoted as saying:
“What AOL really needs is to create a new business model… I see AOL as a kind of wholesale supplier. They add content and bring it together in a way that satisfies the consumers’ needs. For example weather information, traffic and sport. In most areas we will not create content but rather we will dedicate ourselves to bringing it all together in a specific place.”
Then Howard Kurtz reports:
America Online is aggressively striking partnerships with major news organizations and television personalities to promote itself as a serious-but-fun purveyor of news. In the battle for eyeballs these days, it’s all about dealmaking.
Well, actually, no. You don’t need to make a deal. All you need to do is create a link. Oh, sure, you lose the reader for a minute — but if you do a good job, you get them back and, best of all, you don’t have to pay for all that content! Only question is: Will users continue to pay you, AOL?
AOL still doesn’t grok this weblog thing. It’s a model for a new future for media. And if you really follow it, you can explode content from unlimited new sources…. even your audience, AOL.
