AOL Applauds Its Own Blog Success

Posted on October 23, 2008

AOL has released a press release applauding their blog success on the third anniversary of the Weblogs Inc. acquisition. In the release AOL notes that they honed the Weblogs, Inc. portfolio down to 29 blogs.

AOL celebrates the third anniversary of its acquisition of Weblogs, Inc. this month. In 2005, Weblogs had a large portfolio of niche blogs targeted at business and professional users, in addition to a general readership. Since then, Weblogs has honed its portfolio to 29 blogs focused on major consumer passion points such as technology, autos, finance, video games and travel. Since 2005, Weblogs has seen worldwide unique visitors climb nearly 1,000% (122% annually, on average) and page views rise over 1,500% (154% annually, on average), according to August 2008 comScore Media Metrix.
In addition to Weblogs' own growth, the acquisition was instrumental to AOL's launch of successful sites such as TMZ, http://tmz.com, and Asylum, http://asylum.com, FanHouse, http://fanhouse.com, BloggingStocks, http://bloggingstocks.com, and Spinner, http://spinner.com. AOL is now the largest global publisher of owned-and-operated blogs.
"The acquisition of Weblogs was game-changing for AOL and the entire blogging community," said Marty Moe, Senior Vice President, AOL Money & Finance, News, Sports, Weblogs and KOL. "Weblogs pioneered the development of professional blogging, and AOL accelerated its growth and leadership in branded content publishing by deeply integrating Weblogs throughout AOL's substantial network of programming channels. In doing so, AOL transformed its publishing model and increased its relevancy and reach for advertisers, while advancing best-of-breed sites in key consumer interest areas."

AOL says its in-house blogs and Weblogs, Inc. blogs generate a worldwide blog audience of over 30 million unique visitors monthly.

AOL's owned and operated blog network, including Weblogs, Inc. and AOL's other blog properties, is now the largest in the world in terms of unique visitors, according to August 2008 comScore Media Metrix, with a worldwide blog audience of more than 30 million unique visitors and more than 650 million page views monthly. Leading brands in AOL's blog network include TMZ, http://tmz.com, Engadget, http://engadget.com, Asylum, http://asylum.com, FanHouse, http://fanhouse.com, Autoblog, http://autoblog.com, Spinner, http://spinner.com, Joystiq, http://joystiq.com, BloggingStocks, http://bloggingstocks.com, ParentDish, http://parentdish.com, Cinematical, http://cinematical.com, TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog), http://tuaw.com, DownloadSquad, http://downloadsquad.com, GreenDaily, http://greendaily.com, Luxist, http://luxist.com, and others.

AOL also plans more blog brands and more international blogs.

Over the next 12 months, AOL plans to launch of number of new blog brands in important consumer interest areas, as well as aggressively continue the expansion of its blogs internationally.

AOL clearly would not agree with Paul Boutin's recent essay but we all know that article was primarily linkbait anyway.