As part of its NewFronts frenzy, AOL has launched a new video feature that generates content recommendations based on time of day.
AOL has researched what content viewers are most interested in throughout the day, and created 24/7 – human-curated recommendation streams that take advantage of time-based viewer preferences.
“Not unlike in traditional television programming, we know people are occupied with certain universal tasks and free moments throughout their day,” said Rashida Jeeva, general manager, AOL consumer brands. “We also know that people are overwhelmed with the amount of content that they can access and we feel we have a role to play in curating that content to make their visit to AOL.com, and AOL.ca, a positive and informative experience that they build into their daily routine.”
The new time-based feature is not quite a TV channel, where content streams continuously – users will still have to click on recommended “recent features” on the home page or after they’ve watched a video – but it does take AOL’s digital programming a step closer to TV. The move is part of a larger strategy AOL has been pursuing to make its programming more contextual and its ad slots more valuable, and make its digital content more attractive to TV advertisers.
With time-based programming, “we are able to provide our advertisers with more context into the mindset of the consumers when they are seeing their brand messaging,” Jeeva said. “Content and context are so much a part of determining the success of brand messaging in the digital space, that the more specific we can get around that for advertisers, the more success we will both have.”
At the moment, AOL is launching time-based programming in the U.S. only, though it will still be releasing its full slate of new video content on April 29th. The company says it’s investigating what resources and content it would take to launch the service in Canada.
