UPDATED 12:51 EDT / OCTOBER 29 2010

AOL Restructures Homepage, Gains a TV Network Approach

Live starting Monday, the revamped AOL homepage will pretty much radiate the feel of a TV network. Why? To start with, morning video shows will be produced in partnership with Ben Silverman’s Electus studio aiming to entertain, inform and connect consumers in a big way.  This is indicative of where the market’s going, with several areas of converging between the web and mainstream TV.

Tackling about its advertising sector, they will retain a number of existing elements like Project Devil, as a comprehensive marketing location. Toyota and Dreamworks Animation are initial sponsors for the portal’s restructuring, with the former already making appearances on the main AOL page.

Prominent boxes on the right side are for brand advertisers. Underneath is a space for permanent ad unit for charitable marketing that “will complement whatever commercial ad is running that day,” said Christa Zambardino, Director, ad sales, AOL Homepages. “If the advertiser accepts that additional space for their particular cause—they also have first right of refusal and don’t have to accept the cause marketing—the link will direct the user to the cause marketing section of the advertiser’s own homepage.”

The company is reducing advertisement on homepages, as envisioned by newly-hired CEO Tim Armstrong to give visitors a better “user-experience.” “Instead of having 17 ads on a page, let’s just have one consumer and one brand,” Armstrong said. “That will turn out well from a pricing standpoint for us and from an ROI perspective for advertisers.” Moreoever, it will attract more premium ad dollars in a guarantee that AOL will not become a muddle for advertisement.

AOL’s done a good bit of revamping up top in recent weeks, purging and refilling a few positions related to content managment and publishing.  The industry overall is finding various avenues within internet portals for installing a publisher foundation.  AOL, and Yahoo, look to be amongst the most utilized as far as potential and revival go.  Especially if the two team up?

Armstrong also boasted AOL’s mobile wap site. “AOL has 43 apps in the marketplace while most of our major competitors have less than 10.” The wap site also experiences the changed occurring in PC-based homepage.

It’s clear AOL understands that video distirubtion through new networks is the way to go, especially with the progression of the mobile web.  Now we’re seeing whether or not AOL can execute the lessons learned from Time Warner.  TechCrunch, recently acquired by AOL, has screen shots of the upcoming AOL page:


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