AOL (NYSE: TWX) is considering launching its venerable tech blog Engadget in the UK, as its Autoblog today became the latest US blog to migrate across the pond. Autoblog claims 2.2 million monthly users worldwide and is now starting in AOL’s top European markets of UK, France and Germany, here just in time for the crash in new car buying.
Back in May, AOL said it was bringing its Asylum men’s blog and Spinner music blog to the UK – whilst the former launched and now claims 352,000 monthly users, the latter is still flagged as “coming soon”. Similarly, the uk.engadget.com website is live, but also merely “coming soon”…
No specific announcement has been made, but the gadget blog did recently launch in Poland, Germany and South Korea. AOL told paidContent:UK it’s “evaluating” launching Engadget and Spinner in the UK. On these shores, Engadget – one of the world’s most-read gadget blogs – would go up against a raft of gadget media including US rival Gizmodo, which is operated with Incisive Media here.
Now that it’s divested its ISP businesses, AOL is looking to create advertiser-friendly content sites in specific niches – blogs that are linked to the AOL homepage but which stand on their own two feet. Last month, AOL said it plans to launch more blogs in the next 12 months and “aggressively continue the expansion of its blogs internationally”. So it’s also conceivable AOL will bring celeb gossip blog TMZ – one of its most popular – to these shores. Britain already has a vibrant celeb media sector, but there’s still plenty of room for an offering with TMZ’s tenure. Other AOL blogs “coming soon” include Joystiq, Download Squad and Xbox360FanBoy.