patch posts

Last week AOL welcomed the opportunity to host 35 members of the Eastern Association of Colleges and Employers (EACE) in our New York office for career service personnel to learn more about our recruiting process and internship programs.

The afternoon kicked off with an overview of AOL, presented by former MBA intern and current Director of Business Development, David Burrick. David explained how we make money, and provided an overview of our business strategy, focusing on our in brands and advertising growth.

The group then heard from a diverse panel of 6 interns and 2 interns turned employees who offered insight into how they landed their internships and what made their AOL experiences unique. HuffPost College's Alyssa Creamer emphasized the importance of relationship building while in school; she snagged her current internship by keeping in touch with her boss, Will McGuinness, who she met working on the UMass school newspaper. Former intern, Trista Myers explained that her previous experience wearing many hats working at a small startup prepared her for her internship with Corporate Events last year.

All of the students were particularly passionate about their experience as an intern and made a strong point in differentiating the AOL experience from those at other organizations. HuffPost Live's Front End developer intern, Steven Greenberg, described how feedback he gave on his very first day was immediately incorporated into the site design. The On Network's Marketing Coordinator and former intern Alyssa Marino spoke about the tremendous experience working on a re-brand, and how her internship at AOL was the first job where she wasn't counting down the minutes until 5:00pm.

The day wrapped up with a second interactive panel, featuring campus recruiters, full time recruiters and a few current intern managers. Our aim was to educate the audience about what we look for in a resume and what it takes to succeed in an AOL internship. Campus Recruiter Caitlin Geraghty explained that at The Huffington Post, we look for interns who are active in journalism and media, "obsessed with consuming content," and have had previous related internship experience.

Recruiter Laudine Vallarta explained how our Patch business, looks especially for those who were athletes in college, as their competitive nature and experience transition well to the sales environment. Dan Nelson, who currently manages the AOL Kids page, shared the real-world responsibilities he gives his current interns, as well as the importance AOL places on our Cultural Ambassador Program.

The afternoon spent with EACE was a great opportunity to share the wealth of opportunities at AOL, as well as learn what types of challenges college students face throughout he job search process. We look forward to partnering with them again, and growing our relationships with more universities!

To learn more about working and interning at AOL, visit our careers page.

Talent Acquisition Hosts University Career Services Professional in New York aol.it/NjFIdS

- AOL PR (@AOLPR) August 8, 2012

Patch has partnered with a website founded by No. 1 best-selling author James Patterson, READKIDDOREAD.com, to encourage children to read. The first program in the partnership, "Patch and James Patterson's/ReadKiddoRead's Summer Reading List," launches this week on all 850+ Patch sites. A video message from Patterson will be featured on the sites that introduces Patch readers to the program and its four age-specific reading lists (ages 2-7, ages 6-9, ages 8-12 and tweens and teens) chosen by Patterson as great summer reads. Kids and parents can share their own recommendations, their responses to the books and their progress with the list on their hometown Patch site.

Patterson has been the number-one selling author in the U.S. for the past three years, with more than 16 million books sold in North America in 2011. He's the first author to have No. 1 new titles simultaneously on The New York Times adult and children's best-seller lists. A champion of reading, Patterson launched READKIDDOREAD.com to help parents and educators connect their children with books that will turn them into lifelong readers. The site, which debuted in 2008, won the National Book Foundation's Innovations in Reading Prize.

In a press release yesterday, Warren Webster, Co-Founder of Patch, said "James Patterson's passion for inspiring children to read made this partnership a perfect fit for Patch, given our commitment to supporting our communities - and by extension, the kids and families in those communities." Patterson said he's "excited to be getting a conversation going this summer with such a lively and active network of families across the country" through Patch.

Patch announced today that May was its best month ever for traffic and revenue. According to just-released comScore numbers, Patch served a record 11.7 million users in May, a 14% increase over April's 10.3 million users and an 11% increase over its previous traffic record of 10.6 million users last August. In addition, Patch's total revenue was 14% higher than its previous record last November and also represents a 17% bump in revenue over April 2012. In 2012 Patch has already booked 130% of its total 2011 revenue.

In a press release today, Patch also said:

• The 14% month-over-month growth in users outpaced the comScore Regional/Local category as a whole, which grew only 3% over the same time period.
• Patch had a 12% increase in engagement (visits per unique visitor) from April to May. Within the top ten regional-local properties, this represents the highest increase in engagement month over month, and ranks Patch as the second highest in engagement among those properties.
• With an average site age of just over 18 months, Patch is now the #5 regional/local property on the web, from #10 when it first entered the rankings in December 2010.

Jon Brod, who co-founded Patch, said in the release: "We are extremely gratified to see these measures of the traction we have gained in our communities and in our business since our launch just over 3 years ago."

The Aspen Institute Business and Society Program, whose mission is to equip business leaders for the 21^st century with the vision and knowledge to integrate corporate profitability and social value, today announced their fourth class of First Mover Fellows, a program that recognizes individuals for their work uniting business growth with a sustainable society in the products and services they are developing. The selected class comes from a wide variety of industries and AOL's Senior Director of Cause Marketing, Blair Cobb, was chosen as one of this year's Fellows.

As Senior Director of Cause Marketing for AOL, Blair is responsible for the development and management of our relationships with non-profit partners and the advertisers that support them. Blair's key objectives are driving traffic and revenue growth at AOL, while increasing brand perception by connecting and informing their consumers to important causes. Her efforts have resulted in a centralized giving platform called AOL Impact, which provides custom high-reach marketing opportunities for non-profits and cause marketers across multiple arms of the company including AOL.com, AOL Mail, Patch and the Huffington Post.AOL Impact has donated over 19 billion pro-bono media impressions on behalf of over 300 non-profit partners, including those non-profits our top AOL advertisers support.*

The 12-month Fellowship, which includes three seminars, is built around the core themes of innovation, leadership, reflection and community. The program offers the Fellows a chance to become part of a growing community of innovators who share a passion about their work and belief in new possibilities for business. It also serves as an innovation lab where Fellows develop the skills to make their innovations real and successful in their organizations.

Learn more about the program by visiting the First Movers website. To learn more about AOL's corporate social responsibility, click here.

(*Source: AOL Internal Data)

From the day I started at Patch over four years ago, we realized that small businesses (SMB) were an underserved and misrepresented group. Much of the information presented about them online was incorrect and their online opportunities were confusing and limited. To effectively represent local communities, we knew you had to start with the local businesses and places that comprised them. As a result, we proactively - and painstakingly - collected information about every small business and place in every community we covered. We built comprehensive local business directories which we offered to businesses free of charge, enabling SMBs to claim their listing and market themselves to their communities through Patch. We also provided a dedicated SMB support team to address their unique questions and needs. When an SMB calls or emails us, someone is here to help them.

Today, in announcing "Patch Partners," we are reinforcing our commitment to Patch advertisers, and to small business owners everywhere. Why? Because at Patch we know that small businesses have more at stake in local communities than most. They not only live in these communities, they've invested in them, and in themselves. They're truly the fabric that binds strong communities together. Small businesses also have a unique set of needs and challenges that are frequently overlooked by traditional media. We're in a great position to help them. Small businesses are a major audience for us; they're "power users" on Patch. When it comes to commenting, uploading and engagement, they're one of our most active user groups. We view them as essential partners in growing local commerce and community. We hope "Patch Partners" will not only further empower small businesses to reach their most valuable customers, but enrich and inspire them by connecting them to each other, to successful businesses within the Patch network, and to nationally recognized entrepreneurs and businesses that have successfully built their brands and businesses into global successes.

To learn more about this announcement, read the full press release here.