Patch and Profitability
Deep-ish into a story about AOL’s growth this week. The Wall Street Journal tucked this tasty nugget of information: AOL is spending about $160 million a year on Patch, which equates to about $150,000 to run each individual Patch site annually, according to an analyst’s estimate.
It begs the obvious question of whether AOL will–or even can–make a profit from this enterprise…
Case Study: Connecticut Pub Casts a Wide Net With Patch Ads
Like many entrepreneurs, Daneen Grabe, owner of Little Pub restaurant, has little time to research all the advertising platforms that are available in her town of Ridgefield, Conn. She now spends most of her marketing budget on ads in six local Patch sites, in the hopes of attracting some of the hyperlocal news network’s most plugged-in readers. Here’s why.
Patch Partners With Geomentum to Attract Big Brands
It’s widely known that AOL’s Patch network has been hemorrhaging money at a rapid clip — and that ad sales across its network of over 800 hyperlocal sites aren’t yet where they would need to be to ultimately make the company viable. But a new partnership with the country’s largest hyperlocal ad agency, Geomentum, could potentially turn into a major boost.
Memo From Patch EIC: More Articles = More UVs
In an email to regional editors last week obtained by Street Fight, Brian Farnham, the editor-in-chief of AOL’s Patch network of hyperlocal sites, suggested that the sites should increase unique visitors by upping post production, and touted an experiment at 14 Florida sites where increased posting resulted in more uniques. …
HuffPo Harnesses Patch Hyperlocals for Bin Laden News
In the months since AOL bought The Huffington Post, the company’s execs have talked a number of times about plans to incorporate coverage from Patch’s network of hyperlocal sites into HuffPo’s national report. Arianna Huffington herself recently said she expects Patch will be a key element of HuffPo’s coverage of the 2012 presidential election, and Patch local reports from California were recently used in stories about the Japanese tsunami. But last night we really saw that collaboration in action, as HuffPo drew on Patch’s network to flesh out out its coverage with hyperlocal reactions to the death of Osama bin Laden…
Patch Pitch: 855-Town Gorilla Doles Out Daily Deals
Patch certainly reports the news, but it also seems that often Patch is the news. This is one of those weeks. And not simply because one of their interns recently saved a pedestrian, and covered it. The hyperlocal news destination that AOL’s betting a bunch on (closing in on $200 million invested thus far) announced last week that it had crossed a milestone of one million articles published. It’s also rolling out a shiny new daily deals product in over 800 of its communities…