AOL to Hire ‘Hundreds’ of Journalists, Reorganize Content Division
Sites to Be Grouped Into ‘Super Networks’ and Sold to Advertisers — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — AOL is planning to hire hundreds of journalists, editors and videographers in the coming year as it builds out its content-first business model.
Context & Ripple Effects
This move completes an arc that began well before Tim Armstrong's arrival: back in August 2007 the New York Times framed ad growth as vital to any AOL remake, and the company has since been shedding legacy units — confirming in April that it may sell or shut down Bebo — while seeding the new model with a $10 million venture fund for local startups and the Seed.com freelance platform that Saul Hansell joined as its first hire last December.
The June 2010 announcement scales that bet decisively: hundreds of journalists, editors and videographers over the coming year, with sites grouped into 'Super Networks' sold as packages to advertisers. paidContent's take on the same story, headlined 'David Eun Puts AOL On A URL Diet,' captures the logic — fewer, bigger destinations rather than a sprawl of niche pages.
First-order effects
- AOL's content division reorganizes immediately into Super Networks, meaning advertisers buy reach across grouped sites instead of negotiating page by page — and hundreds of editorial hires shift the cost base from technology to journalism.
Second-order effects
- The Seed.com freelance contributor platform becomes the supply mechanism for that many new pages at low marginal cost, while the local-market push backed by the March venture fund gives the Super Networks inventory to fill in geographies national advertisers can't reach directly.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, portals compete not on audience size alone but on their ability to package branded editorial networks for advertisers — an arms race where scale of cheaply produced content, not craft per se, becomes the unit of competition.
The trend: Portal-era internet companies are rebuilding around mass-produced editorial content bundled and sold to advertisers as networks rather than individual sites.