Many of us have fond memories of those heady days when AOL was the biggest Internet service provide in the world. Now it looks like the company, and its once popular instant messenger service are getting ready to shed staff. According to reports the company is getting ready to shed staff over the next couple of week. The majority of the cuts are going to come from the AIM and Patch services.

For those of you who are not familiar with Patch here is a look at how the company describes itself:

“Simply put, Patch is a new way to find out about, and participate in, what’s going on near you.

We’re a community-specific news and information platform dedicated to providing comprehensive and trusted local coverage for individual towns and communities.

We want to make your life better by giving you quick access to the information that’s most relevant to you. Patch makes it easy to:

• Keep up with news and events
• Look at photos and videos from around town
• Learn about local businesses
• Participate in discussions
• Submit your own announcements, photos, and reviews”

Basically, you could think of Patch as a boots on the ground community service that uses a lot of journalists to help get local level information to everyone.  The changes to the now much less popular AIM service were to be expected, but Patch is a relatively new service is a less expected place to find job cuts.

While at the current moment everything is in the rumors stage and we do not have any exact numbers on how many workers will be let go, when exactly they will receive their notice or how much of a severance package they will receive from their company. At this juncture we do not even have solid picture of which positions are going to be let go and which are going to stay around. At this point all we do know is that the layoff rumors are coming from reliable sources close to the company.

This is part of the company’s overall strategy for changing into more of a digital media style company. With its recent acquisitions of companies such as TechCrunch and Huffington Post for substantial sums, the company is on the right track.

AOL is of course, not the first tech company to have to cut back in recent months. Another tech giant, Yahoo, is also making serious job cuts. For those of you who missed out on our earlier coverage here is an excerpt:

“Well it looks like the bad news is coming now, at least according to unofficial sources. The folks over at AllThingsDigital are citing information from as yet unnamed sources that the layoffs are coming now.

The good news is that in the current moment the layoffs are going to be small and selective, and the rest of the cuts will come from leaving hundreds of positions that are currently vacant unfilled. Though this is only an opening volley, and under the reign of their newest CEO there may be more changes to come, and more jobs lost.

The company is expected to show some very weak profits, and depending on which analyst you ask perhaps even a sizeable loss, when its reports for the next quarter are released on Tuesday.

Current the company employs 13,700 workers. That is down a significant number from the number listed the same time last year. Last year the company employed about 14,100. Despite the company’s flagging reputation, multiple senior management changes and a number of waves of layoffs the company is still the 15^th biggest employer in Silicon Valley. At the current moment no one is sure exactly what path the company will take to restore its profitability and its reputation with end users. ”

AOL has not respond to a request for comment about the layoffs at the time of the writing of this article.