AOL Chief’s White Whale Finally Slips His Grasp

I used to work at AOL 2 years ago. It was known within the company that Patch was not going well; even the Huffington Post's localised properties were generating more revenue.

It's easy to say with hindsight that AOL should have tried to let the project grow organically first, with a focus on profitably instead of executing a loss leader strategy, but that seems to be the general consensus here.

It doesn't help either that Patch was being undertaken at a company like AOL. AOL needed to wean itself off of the cash-rich but declining ISP business, and establish itself in the media and advertising industries. Undertaking that challenge at the same time as investing heavily in Patch put the company under a lot of scrutiny.

Thanks to the advertising business doing well, it looks like AOL will be able to run as an independent business, so even though the CEO staked a lot on Patch, I don't think that it will be a fatal blow to his tenure at the company.

It's a shame that he didn't invest that time and money into other promising efforts within the company.