AOL: Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, becomes an advisor

Biz Stone, one of the founders of the Twitter social network, has become a special counsellor to AOL in the role of social impact organiser, following the announcement that the group will be making redundancies.

While AOL announced cutbacks of a few hundred employees last week, following their latest acquisition of The Huffington Post, the group has at the same time recruited a special counsellor - Biz Stone, co-founder of social network Twitter.

While keeping his functions at the social network, he will also participate in managing the "AOL’s social impact" and their image, notably through philanthropic campaigns which aim to provide AOL with a "clean conscience" while reinforcing their image.


One in for a lot out
This effort will then be used by AOL and Biz Stone to raise the company’s image, although Biz Stone isn’t only helping participate in the reimaging of the American group, as he is also offering his services to other large American companies.

According to various observers, his goal is to reproduce the same successful strategy deployed by The Huffington Post by creating a small, effective editing team rather than a large team of contributors who are less specialised.

AOL’s redundancies have not come about due to savings measures, but rather to adapt to the working model implemented by their latest acquisitions. At the same time, the integration of Biz Stone as a counsellor doesn’t mean that an agreement has been come to between Twitter and AOL.