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Will Huffington Post have to follow the ‘AOL way?’

Just a few days ago, Business Insider posted leaks from AOL that they dubbed the “AOL way.” They’re contained in a memo from AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, who is staying on into the HuffAOL future. In the memo:

AOL tells its editors to decide what topics to cover based on four considerations: traffic potential, revenue potential, edit quality and turn-around time.

AOL asks its editors to decide whether to produce content based on “the profitability consideration.”

The documents reveal that AOL is, when the story calls for it, willing to boost traffic by 5 to 10% with search ads and other “paid media.”

The memo also calls for a dramatic boost in story pageviews, from 1500 to 7000 per story.

According to BI, training in the “AOL way” is underway across the company right now. So perhaps we know what Arianna Huffington’s first day on the job will consist of. Will a day of meetings and trainings in the “AOL way” cause Arianna to agree with this unnamed AOL staffer — or find them and fire them?

“AOL is the most f—–up, bull—t company on earth,” says one, who joined AOL in what he calls, “the worst career move I’ve ever made.”

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Posted at 9:59 am on February 7th, 2011 by

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4 Comments, 4 Threads, 1 Trackbacks

  1. 1. Roger L Simon

    It doesn’t matter. Arianna already made a killing. AOL are the fools.

    February 7, 2011 - 10:08 am   Link to this Comment
  2. 2. Bryan Preston

    Heh. Very true.

    February 7, 2011 - 10:16 am   Link to this Comment
  3. 3. Robert

    I looked through the whole AOL-way presentation page-by-page. Only a total idiot would think whats there would be a useful guideline to running a successful site.

    February 7, 2011 - 10:42 am   Link to this Comment
  4. 4. RobbieC

    Well the good news is that if AOL runs Huffington Post like they run everything else they have tried, we should soon see the demise of HP

    February 7, 2011 - 5:17 pm   Link to this Comment

One Trackback to “Will Huffington Post have to follow the ‘AOL way?’”