AOL picks up unified profile provider About.me just four days after launch

Well, that was quick. AOL announced today that it is going to buy About.me, a service that helps people create a profile page, just four days after the site went live.

About.me lets its users create a “splash page” that points to the rest of their content on the Internet. That can include LinkedIn and Facebook profiles, Twitter accounts and Flickr photo streams. The idea is to let users have a landing page they can hand out to friends and other contacts that points to their whole presence on the Internet.

Each landing page is highly customizable. Users can upload a high-resolution photo of themselves — or anything else — to use as a background. They can also change the fonts and make other specific tweaks. The site also includes a number of analytics tools to go with each profile. Users can track how many people visit and link to their landing page.

The site went live for everyone last week after collecting around 400,000 beta users. Another 20,000 people signed up as soon as the service went live as well, according to TechCrunch. The sign-up procedure is pretty quick, and it only takes about a minute or two to get a profile up on the web.

About.me’s acquisition comes at a time when AOL is trying to re-invent itself as a large producer of content, rather than an Internet service provider. The company has begun quickly offloading weaker assets like Bebo and picking up content providers like tech blogging site TechCrunch. The moves are part of new-CEO Tim Armstrong’s vision to make AOL the largest producer of content on the web after a number of failed attempts to diversify the company’s revenue.

“Aol is doing what great, sustainable business do every so often – they’re reinventing themselves,” About.me co-founder Tony Conrad said in a blog post detailing the announcement.

Conrad isn’t a stranger when it comes to dealing with AOL. He sold his last company, blog content engine Sphere, to AOL for $25 million. The financial details of the About.me deal weren’t released. Its investors include AOL Ventures, True Ventures, Freestyle capital and a number of others. The site has raised $425,000 in angel funding to date.