aol.com posts

I'm excited to announce that Abigail Hart Gray is joining the AOL Services team as our new Head of Design. Reporting to me and working closely with leadership across the AOL family, she will lead the alignment of an evolving vision for our products with cutting edge designs and emerging technologies.

She is joining us from Fluid, a digital design agency, where she led the experience design group and was a member of the company's management team. Her background also includes interactive design tenures with leading agencies HUGE, R/GA and Digitas.

Abigail has distinct abilities to translate data and insights into functional design, in addition to her exceptional leadership skills. We will look to Abigail to be a driving force in helping AOL Services rethink the way our audiences rapidly embrace new forms of information, interact with content, their communities and their social graph.

To learn more about AOL's products and services, click here.

This activation will be featured on the newly redesigned Cambio site that includes many innovative features such as responsive design, continuous scroll, extra large multi-platform video display and a simplified approach to content delivery, making the site user friendly on all devices.

The "blue" carpet will be live streamed on Cambio and AOL at 6:30pm ET and the backstage live stream kicks off at 8:00pm ET. Don't miss any of the action, click here for Cambio's coverage of the Billboard Music Awards.

It's my pleasure to announce that AOL has hired Cyndi Stivers, a decorated journalist and digital media expert, to join our team as Editor-in-Chief of AOL.com.

In her new role reporting to me, she will drive all editorial and programming across the AOL homepage, all associated apps and syndicated feeds.

She joins us from the Columbia Journalism Review, where she was the Editor-in-Chief. Her award-winning resume prior to that includes senior editorial and management roles with Entertainment Weekly, Martha Stewart Omnimedia, Time Out New York, and Premiere.

There were many characteristics that cemented Cyndi as our top choice including her programming vision, a strong creative track record, and a knack for mentoring editorial talent.

As we evolve AOL.com as a content destination, we will look to Cyndi to ensure the site showcases the most compelling stories relevant to our viewers and drive a distinctive editorial voice. We'll also be relying on her creativity to help us ignite our live programming and add more opportunities for visitors to engage with each other around our content.

Susan Lyne, CEO of AOL's Brand Group, has worked with Cyndi twice before. In her words: "I know first hand that Cyndi will bring world-class editorial leadership and creative thinking to this role with AOL.com. Our entire stable of brands will benefit from her management of the homepage's reach to help drive network wide events to showcase everything AOL has to offer."

"Adding a talent like Cyndi to the AOL.com team is an exciting moment for our brand," says Francis Lobo, President of AOL Services Group. "Her expertise will ensure we continue to provide compelling content and experiences to the millions of people that enjoy AOL.com."

Cyndi will start in early June- please join me in welcoming Cyndi to the AOL family.

Cyndi Stivers (@cyndi497) joins @aol as Editor-in-Chief of AOL.com aol.it/11WaaRd

- AOL PR (@AOLPR) May 9, 2013

Three years ago, AOL placed a big bet on video. Through the acquisitions of 5min Media and goviral and significant investments in video, AOL has grown to be the #1 premium curated video network. Our goal is to bridge the gap between TV and digital video – be it quality, reach or measurement.

At this year's NewFront we're looking to the future of video. We will showcase our high-quality original programming slate, unique advertising formats, powerful distribution at scale and industry-leading analytics.

We'll kick things off with our 2013 Summer/Fall original programming lineup that features a variety of content that we're creating across categories like food, sports, fashion, health, autos and more. We're partnering with well-known celebs and influencers on the rise who already have digital audiences, as well as the passion to grow their online footprint. AOL has the scale and data needed to produce great content that we know consumers want to watch.

We'll also announce the launch of Be On – a new branded entertainment platform. As the interest for native advertising continues to grow, we are helping brands become publishers. Brands can be smoothly integrated next to our amazing content. From creation to distribution to measurement. It's a global offering that includes the capabilities that we've been offering through the goviral platform plus even more.

We're bullish on measurement too. To date, there has been no apples-to-apples measurement for buyers to compare TV to digital video. We're ready to change that in a few ways. We've partnered with Nielsen on two different initiatives. The first, announced this morning, is a pilot program that will measure audiences for TV content viewed online. AOL is the only digital partner involved in this effort. The second is a collaboration that will measure the audience viewing AOL's library of over 620K premium videos against traditional TV. The AOL Video Reach (AVR) will provide audience measurement in the language that TV buyers know. Essentially, we'll be able to use comScore to measure ourselves against other web properties, and Nielsen to compare ourselves against TV.

Additionally, for the first time in history, digital inventory will be available in a traditional TV buying system through a partnership that AOL has forged with FreeWheel and Mediaocean. The market (broadcasters) cannot buy digital inventory today because we don't speak the same language. This deal allows broadcast buyers to compare AOL's inventory with TV inventory ... finally an apples to apples comparison.

We're ready to show the media industry that AOL is well-positioned for the merge of the digital and TV worlds as we continue our mission to bridge the gap between the two.

It's On!

AOL is proud to announce that we will be honored as a winner of the Uptime Institute Server Roundup for our efforts to improve data center efficiency around the globe at the upcoming Uptime Institute Symposium.

For the second year in a row, AOL has won for overall tally of servers removed. We decommissioned 8,253 servers in 2012, which has meant a total savings of almost $3 million from reduced utility costs, maintenance and recovery of asset resale/scrap. Environmental benefits were seen in the reduction of more than 16,000 tons of carbon emissions as well. Last year, AOL removed nearly 10,000 and saved over $5 million.

The annual Uptime Institute Server Roundup contest was introduced in October 2011 to raise awareness about the removal and recycling of comatose and obsolete IT equipment in an effort to reduce data center energy use. Uptime Institute invited companies around the globe to help address and solve this problem by participating in the Uptime Institute Server Roundup and AOL is delighted to be a part of it.

To learn more about AOL's corporate sustainability, click here.

.@aol wins @uptimeinstitute Award for the second year in a row! aol.it/115zdRq

- AOL PR (@AOLPR) April 18, 2013