“The inventory AOL makes available under the display advertising agreement will be surfaced through RMX across the U.S. and Canada,” a representative tells WebProNews. “The overall agreement aims to improve the process of buying and selling premium online display inventory in the non-reserved space.”

“Advertising.com has been a long-standing seat holder on the Right Media Exchange, having utilized the Right Media Exchange’s RTB capabilities since 2009,” said Brian Silver, Yahoo VP, Ad Platforms for the Americas. “Now, with the addition of inventory from AOL sites, we look forward to AOL continuing to drive yield through their existing advertisers while connecting them with the exchange’s premium advertisers for maximizing yield while delivering on our mutual objectives. AOL’s selection validates Right Media’s commitment to building a premium marketplace on a global scale.”

“We have had a long term partnership with Yahoo and Right Media, and are excited to continue this partnership through this agreement,” said David Jacobs, Senior Vice President, Advertising.com. “The agreement provides for Advertising.com to continue to access AOL inventory for our existing advertisers while providing increased competition through additional demand sources.”

The companies’ agreements last year, which also included Microsoft, were designed to benefit advertisers, agencies, and publishers by providing “more efficient access to premium online ad inventory.”

I’d say today’s announcement fits that bill.

Armstrong spoke at length about AOL’s marketing strategies (it wasn’t their fault this was mostly what they talked about – this is what reporters were asking about) and how Project Devil, their advertising platform, is changing advertisements into actual site content. Mentioning how companies like Proctor & Gamble and Unilever have already adopted Project Devil, Armstrong said, “We believe most of the clients in the world, through their agencies, could extend their content through advertising.” He continued, “Project Devil is an enterprise system that would go inside the holding companies where we’re taking our software and user-interface and basically white labeling it for the holding companies.”

Armstrong also talked about the success of Patches, AOL’s platform for providing local news coverage to individual areas. Although it wasn’t mentioned in the press conference earlier today he did confirm that it had been an overall success thus far. Similar to his explanation for AOL’s general success, he said Patches has been done well because of their organizational strategy and sales teams. AOL has implemented 863 Patches overall, each of which they bunch into bundles of 30 to assess the quality and success of each Patch.

When addressing how Patches became profitable, Minson added, “We don’t want Patches to be a success based on an individual basis because we could theoretically muscle any Patch into being profitable.” He said that the true value of Patches “should be considered within Patches’ overall success.”

Eventually, someone was going to bring up the big jaundiced bruise on AOL that is TechCrunch and the defection of employees that occurred last year. Deflecting the suggestion that the news site was in “chaos,” Armstrong redirected the focus to TechCrunch’s “tremendous year” and pointed out some highlights like the conference they hosted in Beijing and the upcoming Crunchie Awards. “Chaos around TechCrunch,” he said, “is a limited factor because the site has acquired a lot of value.” He went on to explain how TechCrunch has added more talent to their staff and has been receiving “strong interest” from advertisers.”

In an accompanying statement, AOL Chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong expressed satisfaction with the company’s performance and said they “took a large step forward in Q4.” He added, “I am very pleased with the way we ended the year. Our Q4 results highlight AOL’s ability to methodically improve our consumer offering and financial performance.”

Despite besting Wall Street’s expectations, AOL’s subscription revenue was down 18% from where it was last year: $194.6 million in Q4 2011 versus $235.9 million in Q4 2010. Additionally, subscription revenue was down 22% for the overall year, as well, with $803.2 million in FY 2011 versus $1,023.6 million in FY 2010.

While it AOL’s operating income was down considerably since last year at $124.6 million, the figure wasn’t as low as Wall Street’s prediction of $101.3 million.

Some other highlights from the release:

Armstrong and AOL CFO Arte Minson are scheduled to take questions from reporters later today during a press call to discuss the implications of the release.

As if this is any surprise to anyone in the Internet know, Google’s revenues will continue to grow in 2012 but eMarketer expects that Microsoft will eventually surpass Google’s growth rate 2013 and 2014. Still, they point out, by that time Google will command 10 times the search ad revenue that Microsoft will claim.

Even with Microsoft’s greater growth rate in the next few years, Google will undoubtedly remain atop the search ad market in the United States. eMarketer expects that Google will collect 77.9% of all U.S. search ad revenues this year and, by 2014, its total market share will be 79.8%. In a bit of good news for Microsoft, who seems to be a fatal second place to Google in search ad revenue, eMarketer anticipates that the company will pull further ahead from Yahoo! and AOL as both of the latter companies are expected to lose “more than half” of their search ad revenues between 2011 and 2014.

Given that Google’s ad revenue growth over the next three years is expected to drop off precipitously, I wonder if it’s just a symptom of Google peaking. There’s only so much you can advertise, right? Then again, maybe since this is a big year for commercialized events (U.S. elections, Summer Olympics) the next couple of years might just be “off” years until 2014 when the World Cup begins in Brazil and the Winter Olympics in Russia.

For those not familiar with it, the Startup America initiative is an agenda developed by President Obama with Case that began one year ago today. The legislation intends, as Case put it, to “make it easier for entrepreneurs to start and grow businesses,” most likely through the benefit of small business tax cuts. In a statement, Case said that he believes this legislative agenda will “help to create jobs, boost our economy and ensure [the United States'] competitiveness” within the global economy.

Exactly a year ago, President Obama introduced Startup America and made a call to government officials and the private sector to support entrepreneurs working to succeed in a struggling economy:

Case’s full statement is below:

“The President’s proposed Startup America legislative agenda will make it easier for entrepreneurs to start and grow businesses and help us remain the world’s most entrepreneurial nation. I’m thrilled to see the President follow-up on his strong pro-entrepreneur message in last week’s State of the Union with this specific proposal for Congress. Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate have introduced legislation in recent months to improve access to capital, reduce regulations, and ensure we win the global battle for talent. I’m grateful that our nation’s leaders are now focused on entrepreneurship and coming together in a bipartisan fashion to help entrepreneurs start and scale businesses more quickly and effectively. Quick passage of the Startup America agenda will help to create jobs, boost our economy and ensure our competitiveness. On behalf of entrepreneurs all across the country, I urge Congress to make passage of this pro-entrepreneurship legislation a top priority, and get a bill on the President’s desk to be signed into law.”

Will you be a part of Obama and Case’s Startup American initiative? How will it affect your business? Share your experience in the comments below.

DMARC stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance.

The companies involved include: Google, Facebook, LinkedIn AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo, PayPal (eBay), Bank of America, Fidelity Investments, American Greetings, Agari, Cloudmark, eCert, Return Path and Trusted Domain Project.

In a post on Google’s Online Security Blog, product manager Adam Dawes writes:

Industry groups come and go, and it’s not always easy to tell at the beginning which ones are actually going to generate good solutions. When the right contributors come together to solve real problems, though, real things happen. That’s why we’re particularly optimistic abouttoday’s announcement of DMARC.org, a passionate collection of companies focused on significantly cutting down on email phishing and other malicious mail.

We’ve been active in the leadership of the DMARC group for almost two years, and now that Gmail and several other large mail senders and providers — namely Facebook, LinkedIn, and PayPal — are actively using the DMARC specification, the road is paved for more members of the email ecosystem to start getting a handle on phishing. Our recent data indicates that roughly 15% of non-spam messages in Gmail are already coming from domains protected by DMARC, which means Gmail users like you don’t need to worry about spoofed messages from these senders. The phishing potential plummets when the system just works, and that’s what DMARC provides.

“Email phishing defrauds millions of people and companies every year, resulting in a loss of consumer confidence in email and the Internet as a whole,” said Brett McDowell, Chair of DMARC.org and Senior Manager of Customer Security Initiatives at PayPal. “Industry cooperation – combined with technology and consumer education – is crucial to fight phishing.”

“BITS has been committed to defining and improving email authentication standards and practices to meet the financial services industry’s needs. DMARC’s evolutionary approach is critical in assuring these needs are met for years to come,” said Paul Smocer, President of BITS, the technology policy division of The Financial Services Roundtable.

DMARC is encouraging interested organizations to read the specification, join their mailing list and start testing and deploying standards, by learning the details at DMARC.org.

Arrington’s post was particularly interesting given that AOL is an investor in his Crunchfund.

Now, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that one of AOL’s largest shareholders, Starboard, sent a letter to Armstrong saying that AOL’s efforts to become an ad-supported media company are “destroying shareholder value.”

Business Insider has posted the letter in its entirety, along with this response AOL reportedly issued to Starboard:

Over the last two years AOL has significantly reduced costs, sold non-core assets, made significant investments for our future, and also recently repurchased over 10% of outstanding shares. AOL has a clear strategy and operational plan to provide our consumers and customers with exceptional value, which we believe will lead to the creation of shareholder value. Our Board and management team remain firmly committed to creating value for all shareholders and we will continue to aggressively execute on our strategy in 2012 as we continue the turnaround of AOL.

The Starboard letter was a lot longer. It’s conclusion was:

We strongly believe that AOL is deeply undervalued and that there are opportunities to substantially improve overall operating performance and valuation based on actions whithin the control of management and the Board. AOL’s stock price has underperformed over almost any time period and we believe it is time for the Board to take immediate action to address the significant concerns highlighted in this letter.

As one of AOL’s largest shareholders, our interests are directly aligned with those of shareholders. We would appreciate the opportunity to engage directly withg you and the Board and would request an in-person meeting to discuss our views on how to enhance value for AOL shareholders. We look forward to a constructive dialog as we look to ensure that AOL is run with the best interests of all shareholders as the primary objective.

Today, it’s official. She’ll be stepping down at the end of the year. TechCrunch Editor Erick Schonfeld wrote his goodbye in the form of a TechCrunch post. “I am truly sorry to see her go. She is an amazing business partner and a rare talent. Just one example: Last year, when Heather was negotiating the final deal terms with AOL to purchase TechCrunch, she ran the conference during the day without a hiccup, and then literally stayed up all night to get the deal done in time for it to be announced on stage the next day,” he wrote.

“AOL GM Jay Kirsch, who oversees Autos, Finance, and Industry on the business side, will be adding Tech to his responsibilities,” Schonfeld noted. “Editorially, TechCrunch will remain independent under me. (Editorial and business groups are separate at AOL).”

On the post, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington commented, “It’s like watching the movie Titanic. You know exactly how it all ends, but you keep hoping it won’t.”

AOL is probably loving comments like that, especially being an investor in Arrington’s CrunchFund.

Arrington also wrote a lengthy post about the situation beginning with, “I’m so angry.”

He goes on to sing plenty of praise for Harde, rehash previous AOL/TechCrunch drama, imply that everything is falling apart because of Arianna Huffington’s ego, and say that he believes AOL CEO Tim Armstrong will still figure everything out and “save the day”.

He also throws in a reminder that he’s a shareholder in AOL.

“Other than dial up, TechCrunch is/was the most profitable and fastest growing business unit inside of Aol,” he wrote. “That, ultimately, is why everything fell apart.”

Actually, Arrington continues to spread some juicy gossip about what’s going on with AOL. On his Uncrunched blog, he says that rumor has it that Aol is looking for a new president for its Huffington Post Media Group.

“The executive will report to Aol CEO Tim Armstrong, apparently, not Huffington,” he writes. “Currently Arianna Huffington runs both the business and editorial sides of the group. Running a business is fairly new to her. Before the Aol Acquisition Eric Hippeau was the CEO, but he resigned just before the Aol deal was closed.”

“By far the most interesting part of all this, though, is it’s not clear that Arianna Huffington is aware that the new position will report to Tim Armstrong, not Huffington,” he says. “Whatever happens, I’m pretty sure I won’t be getting my old job back.”

There have been some notable departures from Mashable as well, including Editor Ben Parr, who announced his transition just a few weeks ago.

There have been plenty of other changes throughout the industry over the course of the year, but these have been some of the more publicized.

Now, it’s ReadWriteWeb that’s going through some changes. Last month, arguably the blog’s most recognizable author Marshall Kirkpatrick announced that he’d be stepping away from his full-time gig at ReadWriteWeb, though he’ll still be contributing.

Today, news comes from ReadWriteWeb itself that it is being acquired by Say Media. RWW founder Richard MacManus writes:

I’m thrilled to announce that ReadWriteWeb has been acquired by SAY Media, a digital publishing company headquartered in San Francisco. ReadWriteWeb will anchor SAY Media’s growing Technology channel, which reaches more than 75 million global consumers each month.

ReadWriteWeb is going to get bigger and even better. Our plans include widening ReadWriteWeb’s editorial scope and expanding our team. That starts from today, with the addition of SplatF’s Dan Frommer to our team as an editor-at-large. We will also be doing a re-design, utilizing the sophisticated designers at SAY Media. With SAY’s technology and services, we’ll be able to scale ReadWriteWeb in ways previously unavailable to us. So I’m very excited about our team joining SAY Media. We’re going to take ReadWriteWeb to the next level!

Frommer tweeted:

MacManus and Say Media CEO Matt Sanchez put together this video:

“As part of SAY Media’s portfolio of owned and operated media properties,ReadWriteWeb will take advantage of the company’s proprietary technology platform, experienced ad sales team, and world-class design expertise to scale its business to reach more technology enthusiasts and decision-makers,” the company says in its press release. “Under SAY’s guidance, the site will continue to evolve through design and user experience innovations that align with SAY’s Clean Campaign vision, and also expand its editorial scope to appeal to a wider array of technology consumers.”

Say Media’s other tech properties include: Android and Me, Gear Patrol, gdgt, SplatF and TechDirt.

Say Media, which gets about 650,000 uniques per month in the U.S. (Quantcast), is looking to go public. Sanchez is quoted as saying, “Next year’s about how do we get ready to go public.”

According to TechCrunch, Say Media paid $5 million for ReadWriteWeb.

Ask’s fittingly come in the form of the top questions. They were also thoughtful enough to include a video about them.

“Because people come to Ask with specific questions we are uniquely able to understand what’s on consumers’ minds at any given moment, be it pop culture or politics,” said Doug Leeds, CEO, Ask.com. “For the first time, we’re looking at the year’s top questions to not only reflect on 2011, but also predict the newsmakers of 2012.”

Ask’s top celebrity search terms and questions for 2011 include:

1. Kim Kardashian: Was Kim Kardashian’s wedding fake?
2. Justin Bieber: Is Justin Bieber going to be a dad?
3. Lady Gaga: AreLady Gaga’s face implants real?
4. Beyonce: Did Beyonce fake a baby bump?
5. Kate Middleton: Who made Kate Middleton’s wedding dress?
6. Ashton Kutcher: Did Ashton cheat?
7. Michael Jackson: Was Michael Jackson murdered?
8. Selena Gomez: Is Selena Gomez pregnant?
9. Lindsay Lohan: Is Lindsay Lohan going to jail?
10. Charlie Sheen: What happened to Charlie Sheen’s teeth?

Top news search terms and questions included:

1. Earthquake in Japan: How big was the earthquake in Japan?
2. Hurricane Irene: What caused Hurricane Irene?
3. Steve Jobs: How much was Steve Jobs worth?
4. Royal Wedding: What did William whisper to Kate on the balcony?
5. Occupy Wall Street: Who started Occupy Wall Street?
6. iPhone: When will Apple release the iPhone 5?
7. Osama Bin Laden: Who killed Bin Laden?
8. Casey Anthony: Where is Casey Anthony hiding?
9. 10th Anniversary of September 11: What is happening on the 10th anniversary of 9/11?
10. AmyWinehouse: How did Amy Winehouse die?

Top political searches and questions included:

1. Barack Obama: Will Obama get re-elected?
2. Mitt Romney: What is Mitt Romney’s religion?
3. Sarah Palin: Is Sarah Palin running for president?
4. Michele Bachmann: Is Michele Bachmann crazy?
5. Anthony Weiner: Where can I find Anthony Weiner’s Twitter pics?
6. Arnold Schwarzenegger: Who was Arnold’s mistress?
7. Gay Marriage: Which states allow gay marriage?
8. Withdrawl from Iraq: When will the troops come home?
9. Iowa Caucus: When is the Iowa caucus?
10. Muammar Ghadafi: Who will lead Libya after Ghadafi?

Ask’s 2012 predictions list is as follows:

1. George Clooney wins his second AND third Academy Award
2. Dr. Oz surpasses Dr. Phil in ratings in a post-Oprah world
3. Green Bay Packers wins Super Bowl second year in a row
4. McDonald’s adds the McRib to its permanent menu
5. New York reclaims its spot as top the US travel destination from 2011 leader Orlando
6. Breakout star of 2011, Nicki Minaj, leapfrogs pop icon Katy Perry in album sales
7. Pippa jumps onto the list of top ten baby names of the year
8. Facebook goes public with world’s largest IPO
9. Tiger Woods retires from golf
And, finally…will the world end in 2012?

10. Spoiler alert! IT WON’T

And now on to the AOL side of things.

“AOL is one of the starting points for conversations on the Web and this year’s search results reflect that,” said Francis Lobo, Senior Vice President, AOL Search. “Using our data and insights tools, we captured the pulse of the 2011 online dialogue – from Casey Anthony and Charlie Sheen, to Ted Williams and Lady Gaga, our search results reveal the news, entertainment and pop culture memes that captivated consumers this year.”

News

1. Casey Anthony Trial
2. Gabrielle Giffords Shooting
3. Royal Wedding
4. Japan Earthquake
5. Arab Spring
6. Penn State Scandal
7. Osama bin Laden Death
8. Occupy Wall Street
9. Debt Ceiling Debate
10. European Debt Crisis

Celebrities

1. Charlie Sheen
2. Justin Bieber
3. Kate Middleton
4. Jennifer Aniston
5. Kim Kardashian
6. Tiger Woods
7. Lindsay Lohan
8. Amy Winehouse
9. Glenn Beck
10. Pippa Middleton

Memes

1. Ted Williams
2. Planking
3. Serene Branson
4. Anonymous
5. My Little Pony
6. Ancient Aliens
7. Nyan Cat
8. Rebecca Black Friday
9. Tiger Mom
10. Qwikster

Presidential Candidates

1. Barack Obama
2. Herman Cain
3. Michele Bachmann
4. Rick Perry
5. Ron Paul
6. Mitt Romney
7. Newt Gingrich
8. Rick Santorum
9. Jon Huntsman
10. Gary Johnson

“How…”

1. How can I pay off my credit card?
2. How tall is Katy Perry?
3. How can I stop snoring?
4. How did Valentine’s Day start?
5. How do you lock your scroll bar?
6. How much is my jewelry worth?
7. How many ounces in a gallon?
8. How do I change my AOL password?
9. How much should I weigh?
10. How did Punxsutawney Phil get his name?

“Is…”

1. Is Whitney Houston pregnant?
2. Is the iPhone 3GS free?
3. Is Dolly Parton her real name?
4. Is Cancun safe for tourists?
5. Is Roseanne Barr a nut farmer?
6. Is heartburn a sign of pregnancy?
7. Is shingles contagious?
8. Is Facebook going to charge?
9. Is there life after death?
10. Is rosemary good for stretch marks?

“Why…”

1. Why did Dick leave Big Brother?
2. Why did the original Becky leave Roseanne?
3. Why did William and Kate split in 2007?
4. Why did Paul Ryan found the Young Guns program?
5. Why did the chicken cross the road?
6. Why did Glenn Beck leave Fox?
7. Why did Ricky Gervais quit Twitter?
8. Why did Japan attack Pearl Harbor?
9. Why did my hair thin after giving birth?
10. Why did Jerry Lewis leave MDA?