AOL can be proud of The Huffington Post. The ever-expanding blogging and news aggregation platform opened up in France last month, and is soon set to launch in Spain and Italy as well.

But not all of AOL's media properties are such model children. In 2007 AOL founder Tim Armstrong co-founded the hyperlocal news network Patch, but the $145 million AOL has put into the company after purchasing it in 2009 has not yet been recuperated. In fact, according to Reuters, RBC Capital Markets analyst Ross Sandler estimates that Patch has made a total loss of $150 million. Business Insider estimated Patch's losses last December somewhere around $100 million.

Media analyist Ken Doctor, quoted by Reuters, assess the situation: "Patch is underperforming. It is halfway from where it needs to be in terms of revenue and user experience".

Now, however, Reuters reports that AOL has created the position of Chief Content Officer at Patch, and has hired Rachel Fishman Feddersen to fill it. Feddersen will start her new job next Tuesday, and will report to Jon Brod, head of AOL local.

Fedderson previously worked as head of digital content and strategy at The Parenting Group, which announced a strategic partnership with AOL at the beginning of this year. She began her career as a journalist and was one of the original six editors of city guide provider MetroBeat (later rebranded as CitySearch).

At Patch, her job will be to run consumer strategy and "drive innovation in product and programming". Although Reuters notes that Fedderson's role "is still being defined" she will clearly be mainly concerned with ensuring Patch's growth.

Jim Romenesko published a blog post on Wednesday revealing details of possible changes that will be made at Patch now Fedderson has been hired. Romenesko quotes an anonymous source from Patch, who said the company was planning to reduce its staff and freelance budgets and churn out "easy, quick-hitting, cookie-cutter copy". Romenesko writes that Patch is unifying its strategies under the slogan "One Team One Goal" and is considering placing employees who have low performance ratings on probation at the same time as cutting its freelance budget between 50 and 100%.

This might all sound rather grim, but Armstrong thinks Patch is gathering momentum; he tells Reuters that so far in 2012 the network of sites has already made almost half the revenue it produced over the whole of last year. "We're seeing meaningful changes and improvements in Patch monetization," Armstrong tells Reuters.

AOL states that unique visitor traffic to Patch more than tripled between December 2010 and December 2011, and that it has become the fifth biggest local website online, according to data from comScore.

However, Jeff Roberts at paidContent is still doubtful about Patch's situation. Roberts sees Fedderson's appointment as an indication that the powerful Arianna Huffington wants to distance herself from the hyperlocal news network. According to Roberts, Fedderson's hire is "Patch's last kick at the 'hyper-local' can before the sites become 'hyper-regional' or simply vanish altogether."

Sources: sfn blog, Editors Weblog, Business Insider, Bloomberg Business Week, Jim Romenesko, AOL blog, paidContent