In what can only be seen as a "tip of the iceberg" move, AOL have finally made their next play in the blogosphere. Tipped off byHeather Green posting for BusinessWeek I see AOL's new BloggingStocks.com, a weblog about, yes you guessed it, stocks.
Heather has the details:
Bloggingstocks.com is a unique idea. AOL hired bloggers to write about product announcements, earnings releases, and commentary on 8 stocks initially. On its first day, the network will do live blogging of the Microsoft earnings call, for instance. (Good luck!)
So, what about the $64,000 question? Can the bloggers hold the stocks they are writing about?
Indeed. In fact, AOL encourages them to be stockholders, if not necessarily in the companies they're writing about.
It's the first big move since they bought AOL and like Heather, I'd expect to see a lot more. The fact that the "big boys" are starting to move into lucrative keyword areas in the blogosphere means that it's probably only a matter of time before regular commercial bloggers start to really feel the pinch. And that IS interesting. What's more interesting right now though, is if those "sponsored links" they have on the right (currently empty) are going to be straight, or condomed?
Afterall, GOOG now own 5% of AOL right? So we wouldn't want anyone doing anything as dreadful as shoing text links for other sites now would we?
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So these AOL guys are being
So these AOL guys are being paid to boost the stocks they own to a massive audience of investors? Does anyone else find that dodgy? ... would certainly need some sort of iron-clad legal advice to set up such a scheme shirley?
Did anyone else notice that
Did anyone else notice that BloggingStocks breaks AdSense' T&C by having more than three ad units on a page? Google will probably forgive them, though.
> lucrative keyword areas in
> lucrative keyword areas in the blogosphere
I wouldn't call stock picks a lucrative keyword area... maybe middlin' at best :-)
hate for hate
Sorry Andy, but I got to hate on your hate ;)
Stock channels may not be lucrative for AdSense, but investors are all about spending money to make money. There is lots of money and influence reading the top stock channels. Reaching those people is worth a lot of cash if you go full on with making it legit.
Some underpriced keyword markets may be underpriced because the AdSense model just does not fit them right.
>straight, or condomed?
They sell off topic spammy non-condom poker links on the right sidebar on over 40 of their other blogs.
Yes, i've seen those links.
Yes, i've seen those links.
Whereas they dont bother me in the slightest, it does crack me up that GOOG own a stake in AOL now :)
If they follow suit on this one though, it will be the first one where AOL has had 100% influence. So will set a slightly different tone for what AOL see as acceptable and not....
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