AOL considering starting subscriptions for its content

Andre Yoskowitz
21 Jun 2011 19:54

In news that has been unanimously panned, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong has said that the company may begin offering premium versions of its online content via subscriptions.
The company is also looking to partner with traditional media companies in an effort to "help create great content and monetize it properly."

Adds Armstrong:

I think content subscriptions on the Internet can be a very viable business.

AOL purchased the Huffington Post in February for $315 million and TechCrunch for $25 million last year, in an effort to add popular content to its portal and network.

The company is best known for being a dial-up giant that purchased Time Warner for $164 billion in 2000, at the height of the tech bubble. The merger is easily the worst transaction in the history of the industry as the bubble popped the next year and AOL never recovered, heading down from a market cap of $240 billion to its current $2 billion, even after being spun off by Time Warner in 2009.