NEW YORK, Aug. 22 (DPI) — The New York Times in recent months has been chronicling the struggles of a new crosstown rival: AOL.com.

The latest report focuses on AOL’s sliding stock price and disappointing ad revenues for its hundreds of news and content sites.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/18/technology/the-remake-of-aol-is-still-being-written.html?scp=2&sq=tim%20armstrong&st=cse

AOL, now based in lower Manhattan, is seeking to transform itself into an online-journalism powerhouse, as its revenues from dial-up fees dwindle. As part of that strategy AOL acquired Huffington Post in February for $315 million.  AOL stock is down 47% on the year.

The Times faces its own challenges as it attempts to stay profitable and maintain a healthy balance sheet.  Its stock is down 25% on the year as well. Both AOL and NYT are beginning to compete for the same readers.

NYTimes.com is commenting regularly on AOL’s misfortunes, highlighting its internal struggles: As columnist David Car wrote in April, “AOL has changed strategies as often as Lady Gaga switches out sunglasses.”

But a greater long-term threat, some analysts say, is the advent of “popularity news” sites like Reddit.com and Digg.com. Both sites post articles and content based on the preferences of users, who comment and share articles with an interactive gusto that Huffington Post/AOL and NYTimes.com, despite their large readerships, still can’t replicate.

Underlying those user habits are important demographic shifts.  Reddit and Digg users, according to DoubleClick, are principally male ages 35-44, mostly college educated.  Headlines like ” Does Marijuana Make you Dumb?”  and “Dog Thrown from Car on Busy Highway Now Up & Walking” suggest that much of the content borders on the trivial, and coverage of big news events is often little more than uploads of personal experiences (One Reddit.com user uploaded a photo of himself with a Libyan flag, garnering hundreds of supportive comments in a matter of minutes. The headline: “Today I’m the happiest I’ve been in months…”)

Today  Digg is ranked 15 th among all sites with the highest traffic on the internet today.

http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/web-2.0-websites

Reddit was founded by two college students in 2006; it’s since been acquired by Conde Nast Digital.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/09/technology/09aol.html?scp=4&sq=tim%20armstrong&st=cse