Interview: AOL’s Armstrong: ‘Putting Together A Clear Mobile Strategy’
Where does mobile fit into AOL’s plans as the company starts anew one more time under one more chairman and CEO? Everywhere, Tim Armstrong insisted in an interview with mocoNews and paidContent to mark the end of his first 100 days—and the beginning of AOL’s next incarnation. Edited mobile-related excerpts from that interview follow. (More from the interview here on paidContent.)
Separately, we’ve learned that mobile will be overseen by new COO Kim Partoll, who has been promoted from EVP-access, business intelligence & new ventures. Partoll’s new portfolio includes making sure both mobile and global are an element of every strategy area. She has yet to appoint anyone to head mobile. At the same time, the various divisions like Media Glow and Advertising retain responsibility for what their groups do with mobile.
Staci D. Kramer: Where does mobile fit into your strategy? Because mobile has sort of fallen off the face of the earth when it comes to AOL.
Tim Armstrong: Let me clarify two things about mobile: There’s two foundational elements that are going under every strategy area: one is global and one is mobile. You will see us with a clear, succinct strategy and structure around mobile and global going forward.
This, by the way, is a very big benefit to the company if people don’t think we’re actually strong players in the mobile space. When you look at AIM and ICQ usage on phones, we are on the vast majority of the phones across the world. When you think about even the newest things that are happening with phones, the iPhone app store – we launched our AOL (NYSE: TWX) Finance app and it shot up to #1 in one week. Maybe people don’t know that. Consumers are using it and I think we’re going to be successful in mobile. [Another example we got from AOL after the interview: MapQuest 4Mobile went to #1 in navigation its first week in the iTunes store and, through June 25, had delivered more than a half-million Maps and Directions requests. DailyFinance, AOL Radio and AIM all have been in the Top 10 of their categories.]
You were talking about giving up the open mobile platform to Symbian. Third Screen Media, which was supposed to be a good thing with mobile ad networks, sort of disappeared. You’re doing some good things with iPhone apps but it doesn’t seem coherent so how do you get that coherent mobile strategy across?
So what is a coherent mobile strategy and structure? That’s one thing we’re working on. I think mobile at AOL is split up across many different areas…. We’re in the process of doing this right now, of putting together a clear mobile strategy that’s global and has a specific structure and philosophy behind it. That is something that is beneficial for us as an organizational element inside of AOL and even more beneficial to consumers and advertisers.
So mobile advertising continues to be something AOL is committed to, to being a player in?
I certainly hope so.
Do you see any encouraging signs in that regard?
Yeah, I do. This is a hard perspective for people in the U.S. because I think we’re all used to using phones in a certain manner both in Europe and in India. I was in India a few weeks ago and we’re seeing some interesting mobile platforms that are actually working now in India –advertising, but also subscription based. Those are areas we’re going to continue to innovate in and we will export and import those to different countries based on what we think are viable market opportunities.
Do you really see a subscription business for things that people are used to getting for free online paying for them on mobile?
You should call Jeff Bezos.
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