Brian Burns

AOL, the forgotten grandfather of the World Wide Web, became increasingly irrelevant during the 00s as the medium they helped to nurture fell out of love with it.

In an attempt to breathe fresh air into the NYC-based company Tim Armstrong was appointed at the helm two years ago. Now, the CEO is upping the anti by completely revamping the way in which AOL produce and market their content.

The ins and outs of the changes are described in detail in a leaked in-house document — The AOL Way.

By April of this year Armstrong wants AOL’s reporters to increase the number of stories they write from 33k to 55k per month. He wants to get users through the door and bums on seats; aiming for an ambitious 400% increase in hits per story. SEO is another area that the Chief is targeting, with plans to make 95% of all content produced easily indexable by Mr Google & Chums Ltd.

Armstrong understands that there has been a huge change in what users want and expect to consume on the web. Video is to be included in 70/100 stories. A significant move from the 4/100 that currently contain moving pictures.

From a content strategy perspective, this is all excellent and extremely interesting stuff. It’s especially hard-hitting when the aggressive nature of Armstrong’s plan is taken into account. Essentially the former Google President is attempting to transform the company into a modern media giant on the fly, and in record time to boot.

Dustin Curtis said earlier today:

Do not underestimate the new AOL. It’s being driven by a passionate CEO with a strong vision, and the company has plenty money to execute.

I’d tend to agree with Dustin here. It wouldn’t come as a surprise to me if the sleeping giant awakens from its slumber. Let the digital age-reversing experiment commence!

(Via: Mr Murphy)