Update: The new AOL, or "Aol." rather,  has launched at Aol.com.

Original Article: AOL is re-launching as a whole new entity. Last week, the company unveiled its new logo for its new brand identity post-Time Warner. According to the Wall Street Journal, AOL is reinventing more than just its logo, however,

AOL will be focusing on producing content, and has even gone so far as developing algorithms to determine what kind of content to produce. Does this process sound familiar? It reminds me of the horizontal content sites discussion our own Mike McDonald recently had with RateItAll President Lawrence Coburn:

In summary, the concept discussed above is that more companies are looking to cover a wider variety of topics, to cash in, as opposed to dominating one vertical. That appears to be what AOL has in mind. WSJ reports:

AOL says its technology also streamlines the process of assigning, editing and publishing stories, and can record data about every story, such as a synopsis, key words and a location, so the stories can be refreshed quickly.

In December, when it becomes a stand-alone company, AOL will begin to tap a new digital-newsroom system that uses a series of algorithms to predict the types of stories, videos and photos that will be most popular with consumers and marketers...

The system is designed to track breaking news and trends and identify the best times to write about seasonal events, such as Halloween or Monday Night Football.

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 technology will supposedly filter stories for plagiarism, profanity, grammar and punctuation. Editors will then have the responsibility of checking facts, editing, and publishing the articles. Writers will be paid based on what AOL's technology deems their work is worth based on what advertisers would pay for spots that would run with it. It's all in the algorithm.

This process should provide for an interesting future at AOL, for better or worse. It certainly highlights the fact that they're not just an Internet Service Provider.

What is your take on AOL's media publication plans? Smart idea? Share your thoughts.


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