AOL.com Drops The Beta Tag; Ramps Up Marketing

This is how far we’ve come from the bubble days — I was midway through an interview with AOL’s Jim Bankoff when he matter-of-factly mentioned that “today was a milestone in that we removed the beta tag” from AOL.com. No trumpets. So far not even a press release. (The interview confluence was unintentional.) It also reflects the change from client-based releases to a web business. “The web is about rapid innovation, rapid iteration,” says Bankoff, EVP-programming & products. “It’s a web site. Every day new things launch.” Much more to come from Bankoff when we run that interview in the next few days.
The marketing campaign for the site and its components, like the Video Hub and My AOL, kicks up in earnest tomorrow, building on the limited online advertising that started in August Online. The company benefited from a burst of free publicity this summer thanks to its well-timed sponsorship and successful coverage of Live 8. A series of show launches and events like this week’s live Bon Jovi concert continued to draw attention but now it’s time for the aggressive marketing campaign AOL promised. I’ve been able to confirm the components include print, outdoor, radio, SEO and SEM. Not sure yet if it will be as ubiquitous as the AOL CD-roms. More details to come.

No reason to think it’s anything but coincidence that the campaign moves into gear just as Time Warner Chairman and CEO Dick Parsons talks about getting more aggressive with AOL’s new ad-supported strategy.

Related: Goldman Sachs Communacopia: TW’s Parsons Says AOL Is Job OneOur complete AOL coverage

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