Ryan, Tim and I are thrilled to announce that about.me has been acquired by Aol. Whereto begin, there is so much to say but we’ll try to be informative, yet brief for today’s ‘get it now, read it fast, tweet it’ internet reader.
We founded about.me so that any of us could quickly build a personal and dynamic splash page that points visitors to your content around the web (Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr and Twitter) – be it for personal use, or to create a professional on-line profile. about.me is one of those “duh, why hasn’t someone done that” type of ideas. While a simple concept, it’s clear that it has struck a nerve given the accelerating adoption that Techcrunch reported last week.
At some point in every story, one realizes that all roads lead through OM – a little history. Tim was the first to see the opportunity. In late 2007, he embarked on a research project (“Ant Farm”) to dissect Facebook and make it public after seeing how Twitter had taken status updates and wall posts and turn them into a more public service. Twitter also exposed the need to point to something – if you didn’t have an active blog or your bio somewhere, you felt a bit exposed. After leaving Aol (they acquired Sphere in 2008 which I co-founded with Martin Remy, Steve Neiker and Toni Schneider), I started to kick around some ideas around identity and OM suggested Tim and I connect – we did and quickly decided to go for it. If you don’t know Tim, you should – he’s exceptionally bright, pragmatic, one of the special thinkers in our community. Thank you OM, you are truly once again the wizard behind the curtain. To help us bring our thoughts to life, we turned to Ryan, the uber talented ex-adaptive path guru. Ryan and I had worked together in the earliest days of Sphere and I knew he was one of the leading experts in UX Design and Theory. You can see Tim’s vision and Ryan’s paw prints all over about.me.
Going forward, our business approach will also remain unchanged – start-up-style, with the same hunger and spirit about.me was founded on. We are joining Aol at an opportune time. Aol is doing what great, sustainable business do every so often – they’re reinventing themselves. As the business model of the oldest and one of the most venerable Internet businesses evolves, about.me becomes an important piece of their strategy to reach across and engage the web. In the past year, Aol has moved aggressively to build their senior management team around some of the web’s finest minds – we’ll work in Brad Garlinhouse’s Consumer Applications group (as an aside, Brad and I have known each other since he acquired Oddpost, a company in which I was a Board Director). We think it’s a huge advantage to advantage to become part of a suite of communication (AIM, Aol Mail) and community driven (Patch, Seed) services. This is truly a win-win for our users, investors, team and Aol.
A hearty acknowledgment of our team who has worked tirelessly to build a beautiful product that scales: CTO Andy Hao who guided us to a successful launch; Luke Gotzling who joined us when we had an idea and two nickles to pay him; Alex Bendig who after Sphere was crazy enough to work with me a second time; Jake Alheid who joined the virtual company ranks; Ryan Fujiu who allows us to call him “Fujibear”; and Shawn Collins, Pascal Balthrop & Nathan Fitzsimmons who let a part-time gig turn into a full time vocation. If you have a chance to pass them a note, please do so from their about.me pages. Lastly, we humbly thank everyone involved:
- our investors led by my partners at True Ventures;
- our advisors which include many close friends and some of the web’s brightest social media mind; and
- Tim Armstrong, Brad Garlinghouse, Jon Brod and the leadership team at Aol who paid us the nicest compliment of all in offering to acquire our company and then doing so.
We’re thrilled to be part of this new genesis!
Back to the mothership? I knew you couldn’t stay away.
Congrats to you and the whole team !
way to go.. AOL come buy my start up 🙂
Congrats! Love the service.
Congrats on the acquisition and welcome back to Aol. 🙂
Congrats Tony, Tim & Ryan !!
Great domain name and the simplicity of the app clinched the deal.
Cheers,
Venugopal
Vengo Ventures
Sweet dude
Dude no way man now that is WAY cool! Wow.
http://www.anon-web.edu.tc
Congratulation !
Looking forward to setting mine up! Congrats…
🙂
Yay! I love it. I just noticed the email you guys sent us a few days back that the names we registered for were ready to use. I hope that AOL will treat About.me better than Yahoo! is treating Delicious. Good luck, it’s great service.
Congrats guys… Keep up the good work…
Don’t stop howling…
OhKami’s Voice
http://www.ohkamisvoice.com
Big kudos. I had not heard about the about.me site prior to this post but you’ve now got at least one more fan and I plan to spread the word.
“Aol is doing what great, sustainable business do every so often – they’re reinventing themselves.”
Also PISSED myself when I read that
congrats to you and everyone that was involved!
http://enjoibeing.wordpress.com/
I love stories like this with a happy ending! Congrats on being picked up by AOL as well as being freshly pressed. Both are well deserved!
Blessings,
Ava
xox
PS Is AOL investing in pretty Greek rocker chicks who write their own blogs?
congratulation dear
Congrats dude…
You had the day!
share blog sir…………
just wanna tell you if you want to take a trip in jember or bali just visit
jember-tourismservice.blogspot.com
for booyah or who has this site thanks
Never heard of you. You guys . . new?
Nice to know AOL is still alive and kicking. I remember having AOL from 23 years ago when I got my first 286 IBM! And AOL IM was “WOW, YOU CAN TALK TO YOUR FRIEND VIA THE INTERNET??! And all those AOL discs that I ended up using in my garden to keep the deer away!
Kudos and props to you and your gurus!
Well done Tony, another fine transaction. Hope all is well.
-Sam
Congrats!!Hope for bright future.:)
wow i had no idea aol was still in existence, let alone buying things. congrats!
http://dearexgirlfriend.com/
So cool to see this happen for you! “start-up-style, with the same hunger and spirit…”
– this says it all.
Congrats also on being freshly pressed Terrific way to get your word out.
http://workingtechmom.wordpress.com
Congrats.
Selamat (Congrats), go on.
Wow! Well Congratulations to you! That is terrific! I can’t even imagine, but it must have taken a lot of hard work and determination! It does pay off, huh? Congrats on being Freshly Pressed, so now some more people will know about the whole thing, too.
evelyngarone.com
Your article is very interesting and congrats on your new endeavors!
Hey man, thanks a lot!
I immediately created my profile on that site and it seems to be fantastic!
It’s about.me/furaen
This is a nice and simple website, genius pretty much. AOL pretty much got the internet kicking, so they deserve a lot of respect.
Very cool!
I’ve already updated my profile page (http://about.me/edit/brianhoney) in accordance with the new site rules. Congratulations Tony.
I’m just excited about the use of Booyah!
http://antisocialthoughts.wordpress.com/2010/10/20/words-i-wish-i-could-still-use/
I really love the concept of this. I saw kevin rose post about it on Twitter and signed up immediately.
It is not easy to identify, in memory, the people of your ability, and what your sort were doing, before this age of social sites, and the pocket technology itself. You amaze me. It is a constant entertainment.
Congrats! We also have our own about.me profile, and we love it!
What a great win. I saw your answers to “How is about.me different from flavors.me?” at Quora, and think you clearly differentiate about.me from them. In your opinion was there one thing, on that list or not, that was an “Ah-ha” insight when you knew about.me would prevail over them?
For the past few years have been hearing that aol would be no more.
Sort of reminds me of that line by Mark Twain “The Rumors of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated.”
Going forward, our business approach will also remain unchanged – start-up-style, with the same hunger and spirit about. great lines I like it.