Contentinople - Frank Smith - News Bits: AOL Gains in Traffic

Written by Frank Smith

Friday, April 25. 2008 at 11:10 AM EDT 3 comments

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After revising its approach to the Web, AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) and its sites are receiving a much-needed boost in traffic.

Traffic increased to AOL Money & Finance, as well as to Entertainment. The male-targeted Asylum grew by 15 percent to 56.5 million unique visitors in the U.S. in the first quarter, as compared to the quarter one year ago, says data from comScore Inc. .

AOL's traffic crashed in 2006 after the company opened up its site and portals to outside users not subscribed to its Internet service. Previously the site had been visited by users logging in to check their email and such. The company has since been attempting to reinvent itself as an ad-supported news hub.

But as the Wall Street Journal notes, the surge in traffic has yet to be translated into advertising revenue.

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT)'s quarterly earnings surpassed expectations despite an unsteady economy. Its offer to purchase Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) expires on Saturday, while CEO Steve Ballmer admits that Microsoft was ready to go on without a merger. Oh, and Xboxes were hot.

Yahoo might be OK without Microsoft. The company is trying to spin itself into a social networking, er, network with a bunch of widgets and open-source applications. Maybe it's a little like the Web 2.0 version of buying a sports car.

YouTube University fails. Alex Juhasz, a professor of media studies at Pitzer College held a class entirely on YouTube Inc. , relying on the site's video and commenting features, which raises the question: Had she ever read the comments on YouTube before?

Tags: Advertising, AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo, YouTube

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Comments

watch out Microhoo!
desmondhaynes
Rank: Pasha
Friday April 25, 2008 2:38:21 PM

AOL has been criticized by every tom-dick-harry for their change of direction. But this story now is real. Watch out M$ and Y! Look who is catching up, FAST!

http://techwatch.reviewk.com/2008/03/aol-ad-project-platform-a-plots-plan-b/

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Re: watch out Microhoo!
Frank
Staff
Friday April 25, 2008 2:56:11 PM

AOL's certainly been around long enough that it should start doing something right. It has a name/brand people know and always ranks up there with the other big boys, but it needs to do something to bring in new visitors.

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Re: watch out Microhoo!
desmondhaynes
Rank: Pasha
Friday April 25, 2008 3:14:03 PM

Frank, they are getting there; The legacy didn't help. Time Warner is a noose around the neck. Inspite of this, they are moving ahead, and the direction is right. They are trying to be a lean machine. I am confident they will get there.

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