AOL Snags Saul Hansell From The New York Times

Saul Hansell, technology reporter and editor for The New York Times has joined AOL as the first employees of Seed, AOL’s new content management platform. Hansell has also posted the news on his blog. The full release is below:

Seed.com assigns, buys and distributes work for all of AOL’s properties. Hansell will take on the role as Programming Director of the site and will be responsible for leveraging Seed across all of AOL’s platforms. Hansell was the founding editor of Bits, The New York Times’ technology blogs, and most recently was covering the telecommunications beat. As reported by the WSJ and PaidContent, Seed fully automates content for AOL’s media sites. Its purpose is to organize and coordinate content from AOL’s 3,000 freelancers. Seed will determine how much freelancers get paid and will also include technology that will edit content for grammar, spelling, and plagiarism.

AOL has hired another prominent journalist to join AOL’s full time editorial staff.

Saul Hansell, formerly of The New York Times, will be join us as Programming Director of AOL’s Seed.com., AOL’s first employee for the recently announced content management platform, expected to launch this month. Saul will be reporting to Mike Rich, senior vice president of AOL entertainment, and will be responsible for leveraging Seed across all of AOL’s platforms.

Saul joined The New York Times in 1992 and most recently was covering the telecommunications beat, including wired and wireless communication of voice, data and video, including companies involved in telephone, Internet backbone, cable TV, Internet video, cellphone handsets, and other devices connected to networks, as well as communications policy and privacy. Launched in 2007, he was the founding editor of Bits, a blog on nytimes.com covering a wide range of technology topics with particular interest in Internet media, digital marketing, consumer electronics and the evolving business models for music and video.

Bits was named best blog among larger publications in the 2007 Best in Business awards by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. His September 1989 story on computerized trading, “The Wild, Wired World of Electronic Exchanges,’‘ won the Overseas Press Club’s Morton Frank award for best magazine business reporting from abroad. He has also received awards from the Deadline Club of New York and the American Society of Business Press Editors. Saul received his Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies/Economics from Columbia College in 1984.