AOL

Jeff Levick, AOL’s president of global advertising and strategy one-time Google executive is leaving the company in line with the firm’s revamp aimed to boost its advertising sales.

After a six-week transition period Levick will leave AOL, as reported in the memo obtained by Reuters.

Ned Brody, who is in charge of the company's advertising network, was promoted to chief revenue officer.

"We won't be hitting the pause button this week, we'll be on fast-forward," AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong said in the memo.

American Express announced that it will offer to AOL’s Patch a digital payment and commerce platform dubbed Serve. Customers will be able to register for Serve accounts via hundreds of Patch sites.

Patch will also offer users the ability to redeem local deals and transact with local merchants via the American Express network. Through the partnership, local merchants will be able to post offers online in a more streamlined, effective way, and consumers will benefit by redeeming offers at the point of sale.

A lawsuit was launched against AOL and its subsidiary The Huffington Post that seeks $100 million in damages.

The class action suit launched with the Manhattan federal court claims that The Huffington Post unfairly pocketed more than $100 million from its unpaid bloggers when AOL Inc bought the influential news website in February.

AOL Inc plans to contract its staff by 900 job positions which is about 20% of its global workforce. With 5,000 workers AOL will cut nearly 400 jobs in India, outsource another 300 there, and eliminate 200 jobs in the United States, a source close to the company said. At its peak AOL had over 20,000 workers.

However, since the 2001 takeover of Time Warner Inc and its spin off in 2009, the AOL has been sadly declining.

Latest rumors on the Internet say that several companies are considering the purchase of Yahoo again. As the speculations surfaced the stocks of Yahoo began soaring. The speculations say that no certain offering has yet been made but possible buyers include AOL with venture capital firms Blackstone Group and Silver Lake Partners and News Corp.

AOL posted a massive quarterly loss, having swallowed a Q2 goodwill impairment charge related to its sell-off of Bebo. To make things worse the company also reported that its advertising revenue dropped by 27% in the quarter ended June 30. In the same period a year earlier AOL pulled in $355.7m.

Overall revenues declined 26% to $584.1m during the quarter.

The loss reported by AOL made up $1.6bn, or $9.89 a share, compared with a profit of $90.7m or 86 cents a share in its 2009 Q2. AOL was also hit with a goodwill impairment charge of $1.4bn during the quarter.

American Express Company has announced the names of new executive and Board of Directors. According to the company’s statement Daniel H. Schulman, previously worked as President of Sprint's Prepaid group will become a President of the newly-created Enterprise Growth Group. Also AmEx has appointed Ted Leonsis, a Chairman of Revolution Money and AOL, to its Board of Directors and named him Chairman of a new Innovation and Technology Committee of the Board. 

AOL has at last sold ICQ instant messenger company to Russian investors for $187.5 million. The transaction was reported by Digital Sky Technologies, an investment group backed by Yuri Milner, a media baron, and Alisher Usmanov, Uzbek commodities tycoon who owns a large stake in Arsenal FC.

While the popularity of the instant messenger has declined in the Western countries it remained strong and even increased in Israel, where it was developed, and former Soviet countries.

An online instant messenger ICQ, owned by AOL and widely used outside the United States, has added the support of Facebook Chat.

Earlier AIM, which is also owned by AOL, also added Facebook Chat support to its services. In January ICQ launched its 7 version with Facebook support but that included only status updates while the Chat has gone live on March 25 yesterday.

AOL UK has announced today that the beta launch of its new homepage is already available and it lets consumers access multiple e-mail accounts and social networking services from a single online destination. The new homepage will be opened to third-party services and content, providing consumers with new customization options while offering advertisers new opportunities to tap into an increasingly engaged audience.