AOL Acquires Personal Profile Startup About.Me
Personal profile startup About.me launched publicly, oh, all of four days ago. And, boom. Today AOL (our parent company), will announce that they've acquired the company. It will become part of the consumer applications group, led by AOL exec Brad Garlinghouse.
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the third leg of a rapid AOL shopping run in late 2010: the company confirmed paying $65 million for video distributor 5Min Media two months ago with Ran Harnevo installed over its expanded video operation, and moved on TechCrunch in September — a deal so far along that this announcement runs on TechCrunch's own masthead calling AOL 'our parent company.' The pattern behind them all is the confirmed transformation push to become 'the king of content' online.
About.me slots differently from those buys: rather than content supply, it extends an identity ambition AOL has chased since its 2009 Socialthing lifestreaming play against Facebook Connect. Placing a four-day-old startup inside Brad Garlinghouse's consumer applications group signals AOL wants profile-as-hub infrastructure alongside its media assets — even as sources float a potential breakup and merger with Yahoo.
First-order effects
- The About.me team joins Garlinghouse's consumer applications group immediately after public launch, giving AOL a personal-profile product before the startup ever had to prove standalone traction.
- Founders Tony Conrad's circle gets an exit four days post-launch, validating the flip-fast model for early-stage consumer startups.
Second-order effects
- AOL's consumer apps group now spans mail, video via 5Min, and profiles — forcing rivals like Flavors.me and Google's profile products to compete against a bundled portal distribution they can't match organically.
- Other small startups building identity tools face a choice between raising growth capital and selling early to acquirers hunting social graph assets, a market AOL's pace is helping heat up.
Third-order effects
- If AOL keeps assembling assets this way — video, blogs, profiles — the company's turnaround thesis hardens around acquisition-led expansion rather than organic product development, with integration quality as the open question.
- Identity and profile data becoming an acquisition category points toward consolidation of user-graph ownership among portals fighting Facebook Connect's reach.
The trend: AOL's 2010 rebuilding effort treats acquisitions as its primary product roadmap, buying young companies at accelerating speed to reassemble a consumer platform.