In an apparent attempt to reclaim some of its earlier glory, the struggling Internet bigwig AOL Tuesday announced that it is buying TechCrunch, which is one of the dominant Silicon Valley blogs boasting a strong following among the leading tech-industry executives, entrepreneurs, and financiers.

AOL’s purchase of TechCrunch was disclosed at Tuesday’s TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, where the AOL CEO Tim Armstrong and TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington shared the stage to make the announcement. Armstrong acknowledged that the TechCrunch purchase would give AOL “a much larger tech presence.”

Though there has been no official disclosure of the financial terms of the AOL-TechCrunch deal, it is being reported that AOL is paying as much as $40 million for purchasing the TechCrunch blog. Incidentally, AOL already operates TechCrunch’s rival Engadget, which it acquired in 2005.

According to the information forwarded by Arrington, the San Francisco-based TechCrunch will operate as an AOL subsidiary, while still retaining its characteristic editorial direction.

Meanwhile, AOL hiring hundreds of writers to create original news content, and is also snapping up content companies to get hold of more users and advertisers.

That AOL is looking to extend its offerings of critical content to a larger audience is further evident from the fact that the company has also announced the acquisition of Thing Labs, the Brizzly social-networking software maker; as well as 5min Media, the Web video-syndication company.