Hyperlocal news site, Patch, and Going, a soc net where friends share their entertainment schedules, are now part of the reinvented AOL.
“Local remains one of the most disaggregated experiences on the Web today — there’s a lot of information out there but simply no way for consumers to find it quickly and easily,” said Tim Armstrong, AOL’s Chairman and CEO. “It’s a space that’s prime for innovation and an area where AOL has a significant audience and a valuable mapping service in MapQuest.”
Both acquisitions also leverage a consumer and marketplace trend toward greater consumption of news and information online. Local advertising (online and offline) represents an approximately $103 billion market (approximately 39% of total U.S. ad spending), according to Borrell Associates in 2009.
“AOL has a legacy of connecting people to the content, community and services they care most about,” said Armstrong.
Actually, AOL has a legacy of flooding people with internet connectivity software, but those days are over and this new move seems promising. Patch and Going will now have access to resources that will hopefully be applied to growing the company’s services in important ways. Both Patch and Going are working to roll out in more communities around the nation, and this acquisition will, no doubt, help with that undertaking.