AOL (NYSE: [[ticker:AOL]]) said yesterday that it will acquire About.me, a Mountain View, CA, startup that helps consumers build personal Web pages aggregating their blogs and social media feeds. The news came just four days after About.me’s public launch. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Founded one year ago, the startup had raised $425,000 in seed funding from a group including AOL Ventures, True Ventures, SV Angel, Radar Partners, Founder Collective, Freestyle Capital, the New York Times Co., and angel investors, according to VentureWire. “Creating smart online identities for consumers can have an incredibly positive impact on AOL’s content and advertising strategy as it gives us the ability to provide relevant and meaningful content to consumers,” AOL president of consumer applications Brad Garlinghouse said in a statement. Co-founder Tony Conrad, a partner at True Ventures, has a history with AOL: he sold a company called Sphere Source to the online giant in 2008.
Author: Wade Roush
Between 2007 and 2014, I was a staff editor for Xconomy in Boston and San Francisco.
Since 2008 I've been writing a weekly opinion/review column called VOX: The Voice of Xperience. (From 2008 to 2013 the column was known as World Wide Wade.)
I've been writing about science and technology professionally since 1994. Before joining Xconomy in 2007, I was a staff member at MIT’s Technology Review from 2001 to 2006, serving as senior editor, San Francisco bureau chief, and executive editor of TechnologyReview.com. Before that, I was the Boston bureau reporter for Science, managing editor of supercomputing publications at NASA Ames Research Center, and Web editor at e-book pioneer NuvoMedia.
I have a B.A. in the history of science from Harvard College and a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT. I've published articles in Science, Technology Review, IEEE Spectrum, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Technology and Culture, Alaska Airlines Magazine, and World Business, and I've been a guest of NPR, CNN, CNBC, NECN, WGBH and the PBS NewsHour. I'm a frequent conference participant and enjoy opportunities to moderate panel discussions and on-stage chats.
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