Is it time to call Patch a bust? AOL CEO Tim Armstrong is promising to make the company’s pared back, content-starved local news websites profitable by the end of the year, but wait . . . there’s a huge caveat. AOL is getting ready to shutter, sell or find partners for 300 of the 900 sites nationwide. Poynter writes about it, with links. Blogger Jim Romenesko says Patchers are bracing for big layoffs Friday.
If you haven’t logged onto one lately, sites have been consolidated to shovel the same “local” news to different communities, bloggers have left in droves, and, to put it bluntly, there’s nothing much there.
