AOL gets (slighty) more serious about Australia with Lemondrop and Asylum
AOL is ramping up its activity in Australia with localised versions of its female focused site Lemondrop and male oriented destination Asylum.
Although both sites now have .com.au domains, so far they appear to mainly consist of content recycled from the US-based sites. Early evidence is that the signs are yet to see much traffic – Mumbrella was unable to find any local comments posted on recent articles.
Asylum uses a Sydney-based stringer, who will also now contribute to the Australian edition.
AOL says that Lemondrop is aimed at 18-34-year-old women.
However, although the site’s US domain is lemondrop.com, in Australia it is hyphenated as lemon-drop.com.au because the Lemondrop.com.au domain is already in use as a female-focused health site.
In a press release, Vanessa Brown, general manager of AOL Australia and New Zealand said: “We believe that Australian women are looking for a fresh perspective on lifestyle issues, and we are excited to bring the Lemondrop experience to the local market. We remain focused on connecting the Australian Internet audience with their passions, a range of content, and services that connect with their unique interests by offering localised versions of sites like Lemondrop and Asylum.”
The move comes just over a year since AOL launched an aol.com.au domain, signalling its return to the Australian market.
Lemondrop is the latest site to target the Australian female demographic. Flossie.com will officially launch in July with a network of 30 Australian specific sites, offering advertisers around one million domestic unique browsers.
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What ugly sites.. I know aesthetic and design is ‘apparently not as important as content’… but this is just plain wrong!
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Just lifting what comes from the US and dropping here is poor and users are not stupid. A much better localisation can be seen by the folks at Allure: look at Gizmodo which claims 850k users or Kotaku with over 500k. These are serious numbers that show that they can take great content from overseas but provide it in a relevant way for an Australian audience. They run a lean business but also deliver a quality product. I don’t see the folks over at Zoo, Ralph, FHM or other men’s sites quaking in their boots just yet or their compatriots on the women’s lifestyle side.
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Check out Flossie – it’s definitely not *ugly* and it will hold Australian content – some good stories written about it:
http://www.bandt.com.au/news/00/0c05f200.asp
http://deborahrobinson.blogspo.....ralia.html
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