Millennials: AOL Wants YOU!

If you’re 45 or older, you likely remember AOL from the 1990s as your window to the World Wide Web through a noisy and

If you’re 45 or older, you likely remember AOL from the 1990s as your window to the World Wide Web through a noisy and painfully slow Internet connection. AOL is trying to change that image by appealing to Millennials who don’t remember the “100 hours of free Internet” CDs that used to come in the mail.Why? Because the average age of the AOL audience is 48, according to Wired, and that doesn’t appeal to advertisers. To reach the Millennial crowd (18 to 35), AOL has redesigned its home page to focus on being mobile responsive and video friendly.It has gotten rid of its news feeds and replaced them with an updated look and content modeules, home page sliders, headlines and video links, and of course, advertising. Guess who’s advertising this week? Apple! No surprise there after the company’s big announcements at WWDC 2015 on Monday.

Millennials: AOL Wants YOU!

TechCrunch says the feeds will be replaced by headlines and videos curated by people and will be personalized to an individual reader’s interests. Rather than being a news aggregator, AOL will defer to its strengths, including offering content from its other properties like Huffington Post and TechCrunch and partners like Condé Nast and NBCUniversal.According to the Wired article, AOL’s in-house design team redesigned the mobile version first (photo on the right) and then the desktop version based on the mobile design. The new design allows AOL to build on its video popularity, making it easier to view videos online. It will also make it easier for AOL to live-stream events.”We’re more of a TV network than a traditional site,” explains AOL president Maureen Sullivan in the Wired article.Skeptical that AOL is still relevant? AOL gets 31 million unique monthly visitors. There is a lot of ad revenue to be made by advertisers who want to get in front such a large audience, but with only 14% of the 31 million under age 25, AOL has to appeal to Millennials. Is a site redesign enough?Insider Take:With each generation comes new challenges and new opportunities. Media outlets all over the world are looking to Millennials to replace the aging Baby Boomer audience. To appeal to a younger crowd with vastly different tastes and experiences, however, companies like AOL need to adapt quickly.They need to not only be where Millennials want to be, but they need to understand Millennial habits and preferences. This means updating or redesigning media platforms, including websites, but also providing them with the type of content they want in a format they are willing to use and at the right price point.For more on Millennials, see our post on 2015 media spending and our 2013 post on how Millennials consume news

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