AfterDawn: Tech news

About.me goes independent after buying itself back from AOL

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 05 Feb 2013 7:01

About.me goes independent after buying itself back from AOL This week, About.me, the online personal portal site, announced that it had purchased itself back from AOL, which had bought them in 2011.
About.me lets users create a "digital business card" that links to their sites around Web like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and any other business or personal link.

Co-founder Tony Conrad says he was able to buy the site back for "a fraction" of the cost that it sold for, which was rumored to be as high as $40 million. Conrad says the company can better thrive in an "autonomous" setting, "I think we can build it so much faster, and so much better, by making it independent again. There's no obvious leverage in being part of the AOL media network, and there's no synergy and integration."

Conrad and other co-founder Ryan Freitas will regain full control of the service when the deal closes. AOL will keep an 8 percent stake.

About.me had mostly fallen off the map after being acquired, with AOL still struggling to find their place in the world.

Previous Next  
Comments have been disabled for this article.

Latest news

Roomba Combo j7+ review - Clever trick allows robot vacuum finally to tackle home with rugs and carpets Roomba Combo j7+ review - Clever trick allows robot vacuum finally to tackle home with rugs and carpets (06 Jun 2023 9:19)
Roomba Combo j7+ is the very first Roomba model to combine robot vacuum with mopping features. And Roomba Combo j7+ does all that with a very clever trick, which tackles the problem with mopping and carpets. But is it any good? We found out.
Neato, the robot vacuum company, ends its operations Neato, the robot vacuum company, ends its operations (02 May 2023 3:38)
Neato Robotics has ceased its operations. American robot vacuum pioneer founded in 2005 has finally called it quits and company will cease its operations and sales. Only a skeleton crew will remain who will keep the servers running until 2028.
5 user comments
How to Send Messages to Yourself on WhatsApp How to Send Messages to Yourself on WhatsApp (20 Mar 2023 1:25)
The world's most popular messaging platform, Meta-owned WhatsApp has enabled sending messages to yourself. While at first, this might seem like an odd feature, it can be very useful in a lot of situations. ....
18 user comments
How to Enable Bluetooth on Stadia Controller How to Enable Bluetooth on Stadia Controller (11 Feb 2023 1:04)
Google shut down its streaming game service Stadia late last month and this means that some people have Stadia controllers lying around that seem to be of no use. That is fortunately not the ....
2 user comments
Guide: How to Kick Unwanted Guests from Your Netflix Account Guide: How to Kick Unwanted Guests from Your Netflix Account (26 Jan 2023 2:14)
Sharing a Netflix account with a person in a different location is possible and indeed very common, although the company doesn't necessarily enjoy this behavior from their customers. However, ....

News archive