AOL to Get Horizontal with Algorithm-Based Content
WebProNews Feed — ... According to the Journal, AOL's editorial staff of about 500 will be responsible for assigning articles to a network of free-lance writers via Seed.com. Right now they have about 3,000 free-lancers in the bank, but will likely increase that number dramatically. Anyone can submit a story to Seed.com.  ...

AOL Snags Saul Hansell From The New York Times
TechCrunch — Saul Hansell, technology reporter and editor for The New York Times has joined AOL as the first employees of Seed, AOL’s new content management platform. The full release is below: Seed.com assigns, buys and distributes work for all of AOL’s properties. Hansell will take on the role as Programming Director of the site. AOL has hired another prominent journalist to join AOL’s full time editorial staff. Saul Hansell, formerly of The New York Times, will be join us as Programming Director of AOL’s Seed.com., AOL’s first employee for the ...

AOL set to stand on its own and unveil its new identity
BIA/Kelsey Local Media Watch — Today marks the last day that AOL will have a corporate connection to Time Warner, as the two companies officially separate on December 10th as a new AOL emerges on the New York Stock Exchange as a separate company. Over the last several weeks, AOL has been aggressively moving to put the merger with Time Warner behind them. To accomplish this AOL has partnered with Wolff Olins, a brand management consulting firm, to give the company a more creative image - one with expression. Though the official transfer of AOL’s logo occurs tomorrow, the new imagery was unveiled ...

The New AOL is Now Live
WebProNews Feed — ... According to the Journal, AOL's editorial staff of about 500 will be responsible for assigning articles to a network of free-lance writers via Seed.com. Right now they have about 3,000 free-lancers in the bank, but will likely increase that number dramatically. Anyone can submit a story to Seed.com.  ...

AOL's first day: How much mojo will Seed.com have?
Between the Lines — December 10th, 2009 AOL's first day: How much mojo will Seed.com have? Posted by Larry Dignan @ 6:14 am Categories: AOL , General , Web Technology Tags: America Online Inc. , Tim Armstrong , Seed.com , Seed.com System , Search , Marketing Research , Advertising & Promotion , Marketing , Larry Dignan It’s the first day for AOL as an independent company as CEO Tim Armstrong hits the New York Stock Exchange and everything seems possible—at least until reality hits the company again tomorrow. The most ...

AOL's first day: We want to believe
The Social — NEW YORK--The line on Wednesday night snaked outside the New York Stock Exchange building as a swarm of marketing, advertising, and other media types waited to get into the party that AOL was throwing on the trading floor to spinoff from Time Warner. Onlookers weren't really sure what the big deal was. An evening commuter walked past, craning his neck up at the massive AOL-logo banner--yes, the one with the fuzzy blue monster on it--and asking a few of the people in line, "Why's AOL having a party?" "Spinning off from Time Warner." "Oh, finally," the commuter replied, and sauntered off into the night. ...

JP Morgan: AOL's 'A Late 2011 Story'
paidContent — While hopes have been high for AOL (NYSE: AOL) since its spinoff from Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) last month, JP Morgan analyst Imran Khan is warning against any quick turnaround. In a research note issued this morning, the analyst has initiated coverage of AOL with a “neutral” rating and a price target of $27. That’s more pessimistic than BernsteinResearch, which rated AOL as “outperform” a day after the spinoff, with a price target of $31. As of noon today, AOL’s stock was trading ...

Aol.'s Seed.com Lacks Speed
NYConvergence - A digest of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut digital media technology news — aol.'s recently launched content platform Seed.com is already getting negative feedback from writers. eConsultancy reports that writers who submit articles to its platform are not getting timely acceptances or rejections for their work. The Seed.com Publishing Agreement says that all articles will be approved or rejected within five business days of the assignment due date. eConsultancyPrevious: >  'NY Times'' Hansell Joins Aol.'s 'Seed.com' ...

Aol Quietly Launches An Expert Site Called Owl, and Feeds It Seed
TechCrunch — Aol’s answer to Wikipedia is Owl, a new site described as “a living, breathing library where useful knowledge, opinions and images are posted from experts the world over.” Owl seems more of a testbed for Seed than anything else. Seed, of course, is Aol’s new low-cost content management system for soliciting articles and photographs for its network of existing Websites. Owl will crowdsource freelance work from “experts” who submit articles about movies, books, health, sports, money, parenting, computers, and other topics. ...

Hoo Gives a Hoot About AOL’s Owl?
Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim — Do you like peek shows? How about a sly peek at what could be part of AOL’s broader strategy to flood the web with contributor-generated content and monetize it? Well, AOL built Owl as a testing ground for its SEED platform–or, as some ...

Owl: AOL’s online content library
D' Technology Weblog — Aol launched a new site called “Owl” – the site is described as “a living, breathing library where useful knowledge, opinions and images are posted from experts the world over.” “Owl is less like Wikipedia than it is like Helium, which also pays for expert articles. Owl seems more of a testbed for Seed than anything else. Seed, of course, is Aol’s new low-cost content management system for soliciting articles and photographs for its network of existing Websites. Owl will crowdsource freelance work from ...

Meet Owl, AOL's All-Purpose Knowledge Dump (AOL)
Silicon Alley Insider — AOL's Seed freelancer-driven content factory has been working for about a month, generating hundreds (thousands?) of new articles and photographs for AOL's various existing sites. But AOL is also developing new sites to hold Seed content, such as Owl , a newish site discovered by TechCrunch . AOL officially describes Owl as "a living, breathing library where useful knowledge, opinions and images are posted from experts the world over." It seems like a mix of service-y, how-to, general-knowledge articles, lists, etc., that might not fit on AOL's newsier sites. Top stories ...

Seed’s Goal Is To “Redefine Journalism For The Internet Age,” Its Reality Is Untangling Cat Hair
TechCrunch — Last December, Saul Hansell left his job as a veteran reporter and blogger at the New York Times to become the programming director for Aol’s Seed, which is the new online assignment desk for Aol’s 80 different Websites. In his first blog post since he took on the new job, Hansell admits that his new career path was met by “a lot of blank stares” from friends and family. Seed is still a bit of a mystery to many, but its essentially a way for Aol to assign articles to anyone on the Web beyond the 3,500 journalists and professional freelancers it ...

AOL Acquires StudioNow For $36.5M, Confirms Departure Of CTO Ted Cahall
TechCrunch — ... Seed.com. This system essentially assigns, buys and distributes work for all of AOL’s properties, which includes more than 80 branded and niche content sites. ...

AOL: A new buy, a new hire, a CTO hunt
The Social — AOL announced Monday that it's spent $36.5 million on the acquisition of StudioNow, a start-up that has built technology for online video creation and distribution. It'll be worked into Seed.com ...

AOL adds video to Seed catalog; CTO leaves
GMSV — In its first acquisition since spinning free from Time Warner last year, AOL announced today it was shelling out $36.5 million in cash and stock for StudioNow , maker of an online video creation and distribution platform . While StudioNow will continue its existing business serving commercial customers, it will also become part of the customized content generation and management machinery of AOL’s Seed.com . Seed is tasked with identifying what sort of editorial content might play well at any given moment, farming the assignments out to freelancers, and placing that content ...

AOL Spends $36.5 Mln on Video Platform StudioNow
Digital Trends — AOL logo (scrunchy? fabric softener? who knows) Newly-independent AOL has inked a $36.5 million deal to buy StudioNow, with an eye towards building video creation tools into Seed.com. Fresh from being cut loose from Time Warner, AOL has just announced a $36.5 million deal to buy online video platform StudioNow . AOL says the deal is all about integrating a “fully functional” video creation platform into its Seed.com content management system. Seed.com is AOL’s just-launched content management platform; AOL uses it for interacting with freelancers and anyone who wants ...

Can You Crowdsource Journalism? Seed is Trying [GigaOM]
GigaOM Network — In what he hopes will be the first big demonstration of the “crowdsourcing” potential of AOL’s new Seed.com service, former New York Times writer Saul Hansell says he is looking for writers who will write up interviews with all of 2,000 or so bands and artists ...

The new WoW.com Guest Writer program
WoW.com — You may be seeing some new names on the site soon, but don't be alarmed! In addition to the new columnists who have recently joined us, we also are starting a new Guest Writer program through Aol's Seed.com. Seed is new site designed to allow writers submit work for publication on many of ...

The NYT's Metering Plan Doesn't Go Far Enough—Here's The Rest Of The Solution
paidContent — Ben Elowitz is co-founder and CEO of Wetpaint, a platform for building out web sites, and author of the Digital Quarters blog. Prior to Wetpaint, Elowitz co-founded Blue Nile, the largest online retailer of luxury goods. He is also an angel investor in media and e-commerce companies. It’s now abundantly clear that the ad model isn’t enough to support the New York Times’ online future—the company needs consumers to help pay the bills. Thus, its recent decision to go ...

Your first Apple, or how it all began...
The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) — Filed under: AppleThis week, while a good part of the TUAW team is at Macworld, it's worth considering for a moment how we all came to start using Apple products. The "Switcher" campaign morphed into the "I'm a Mac" campaign, but really the idea is the same: rarely do you see people switching *back* to Windows after using a Mac. Then there's the halo effect from the iPod/iTunes ecosystem, the iPhone, and before all of that there was Apple's dominance in the educational markets and later in the design, publishing and other creative fields. But we all came to Apple in a different way. ...

AOL plans to dominate hyperlocal news – can indie journos compete?
The Next Web — Hyperlocal news is set to be a huge growth area this year and AOL is gearing up to be a major player in this new market. Meanwhile, in the UK The Guardian launched its first hyperlocal site today. As major media companies colonize this space, do small independent publishers have a chance of competing? Silicon Alley Insider reports that AOL is planning to scale up its Patch network of hyperlocal sites from 30 to “hundreds” by the end of this year. The company, often derided as a past-it ISP but now a major online media publisher with sites ...

BootsnAll call for guest writers
Gadling — Filed under: Internet Tools BootsnAll wants more content, and that's where you come in. You've probably heard about AOL's arm, SEED, which allows you to submit articles to a number of AOL sites (such as Gadling, everyone's favorite) for consideration. It's great because some of our readers are just as good at this as we are, and it enables them (you) to get paid to blog with us. BootsnAll is launching a similar program called the BootsnAll Travel Writer Platform which is targeted specifically at those of ...

The 25 greatest cities in the world for drinking wine
Gadling — Beaune, France [image] On your next trip to France , escape Paris and drive three hours south east to the city of Beaune . Even without wine, Beaune is a beautiful, historical city, with centuries-old cathedrals, ancient ramparts, and world-class cafs and restaurants. The best place to sample wines in Beaune is the Marche aux Vins . The Marche, located in a 15th century Franciscan church, is a collective run by many of the region's wine merchants. For a mere 10.00 , you can spend a morning or afternoon sampling a very large selection of Burgundies. You will be provided with a ...

Download Squad at SXSW Interactive
Download Squad — Filed under: Features, sxswThe Interactive portion of SXSW is March 12-16, and Download Squad will be covering the event a little differently this year. We'll still have videos from developers, designers and business leaders, but in addition, we'll be harnessing the power of the crowd via Seed to cover the core takeaway from as many panels and conversations as possible. If you're interested in covering SXSW Interactive for Download Squad, you too can join the fun. Just head over to Seed and set up an account. Then email us at sxsw (make the at ...

AOL’s Big SXSW Bet On Seed and “Bionic Journalism”
TechCrunch — Editor’s Note: This guest post was written and reported by Steven Rosenbaum, the CEO of Magnify.net. Today, the world of music, film, and the internet converges on Austin, Texas for what is fast becoming one of the key the places to launch new software products. For the folks at AOL, South By Southwest—know also as SXSW—will be a debutant party for AOL’s new Seed form of journalism. AOL has it’s hopes pinned on that fact that SXSW will be the perfect place to both introduce the new Seed content ...

Seed's Coming Out Party at SXSW
NYConvergence - A digest of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut digital media technology news — At this year's SXSW,  Aol has used  the event to officially test out Seed.com, its new content aggregator/journalism/freelancer Web site led by former New York Times tech journalist Saul Hansell.  Seed has solicited freelance writers to contribute articles for its music site Spinner , namely to cover the more than two thousand bands that will play this week at the festival.   Tech Crunch  Previous: > Aol.'s Seed.com Lacks Speed > 'NY ...

SXSW Report - Start with content, not creativity
Download Squad — Filed under: sxswA quick look into why content strategy is a critical element in the design process.* Content Strategy What's in it for you? at SXSW View more presentations from Margot ...

AOL Unveils New Food Site Run By Former Gourmet, Epicurious Editors
paidContent — AOL (NYSE: AOL) practically added two new sites a month last year as part of its goal to reach 100 sites under its MediaGlow content group. While the content strategy has lately rested on building up its freelance content site Seed.com, AOL still plans to roll out more verticals. The latest is what amounts to an overhaul of the AOL Food channel in the form of recipes site Kitchen Daily, which was fully launched this morning. Parts of AOL Food are sticking around on Kitchen Daily, including Grilling ...