Crenk

AOL has acquired Sphere. Sphere is a technology that increases the relevant articles, blog posts and content to websites, via their widget. Sphere will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL, the company said in a statement, part of the programming division led by Executive Vice President Bill Wilson. AOL–along with Newsweek, Time, Reuters, GigaOM, The Wall Street Journal, and other sites–already was a Sphere partner.

This is a very interesting acquisition, because the Sphere technology can be very useful for the larger conglomerates and because Google and Yahoo already have this kind of technology, that only left AOL and possibly Amazon left. The deal im sure will see more AOL content floating across it, while AOL will also be using the technology in amongst their services and finally, Platform-A will have some more ad inventory to sell.

According to Allen over at CenterNetworks, AOL is announcing that their Platform-A advertising network has just signed an exclusive agreement with Verizon. Under the agreement AOL will manage the mobile and online advertising for Verizon exclusively, but there is no real indication wether is agreement was provided on a total amount of impressions.

The soap opera that is Microsoft bid for Yahoo is continuing. Firstly it is reported by the WSJ that Yahoo is closing in on a merger with AOL. If the deal goes through, the two companies would combine their web and internet based services. Yahoo! would reportedly use some of the revenue from a merger with Time Warner/AOL to buy back a whole bunch of stock which woudl help the company fend off any further unwanted advances from Microsoft.

While at the same time it is reported that Yahoo has begun testing out Search Ads from Google. Then Microsoft hit back with the following statement about the search testing:

From Brad Smith, Microsoft’s General Counsel:

“Any definitive agreement between Yahoo! and Google would consolidate over 90% of the search advertising market in Google’s hands. This would make the market far less competitive, in sharp contrast to our own proposal to acquire Yahoo! We will assess closely all of our options. Our proposal remains the only alternative put forward that offers Yahoo! shareholders full and fair value for their shares, gives every shareholder a vote on the future of the company, and enhances choice for content creators, advertisers, and consumers.”

Well, what can I see happening? I expect that AOL and Yahoo will potentially merge, but this it might happen in about 6 months time. In terms of search advertising between Google and Yahoo, im sure this cant continue because of the amount of marketshare they will have between them. Finally, Microsoft have no chance of purchasing Yahoo, I cant see it happening because Yahoo shareholders and directors would have already agreed if there was something that was going to happen.

More news from around the world.

AOL has announced this morning that they have acquired social networking service Bebo for $850 million in cash. Bebo is the third-largest social networking service in the U.S. behind MySpace and Facebook. Why has AOL done this? One reason is that the soon to be Platform-A will have a huge amount of inventory to sell. AOL has made a big step forward in targeting the youth demographic that use Bebo. 

Bebo claims over 40 million members and is one of the leading social networks in the UK, and is ranked number one in Ireland and New Zealand, and number three in the U.S. Its users are heavily engaged and view an average of 78 pages per usage day. Together with its AIM and ICQ personal communications network, the acquisition will give AOL a premier position in the fast growing world of social media with a network of approximately 80 million unique users.

It has been a busy day in the race for Yahoo. Rupert Murdoch has officially stated that News Corp is going to fight Microsoft for Yahoo, and on the flip side the Time Warner Chief Executive Jeffrey Bewkes has said that Time Warner is open for a deal on AOL.

Talking to investors at the annual Bear Stearns Media Conference, Murdoch said that “We’re not going to get into a fight with Microsoft, which has a lot more money than us.” Murdoch also gave support to Google as FIM’s ad provider: “We’re very happy to be in the Google camp. They sell our search advertising and pay us well for it.”

Bewkes however acknowledged weakness in the AOL business and told the Bear Stearns media conference Tuesday that Time Warner was open to combining AOL with another company “whatever configuration makes it the strongest and the most valuable.” This being said, AOL booked $5.2 billion in revenue in 2007 with AOL properties receiving 112 million visitors a month.

So as the race heats up, who is actually putting in formal bids for Yahoo and will there be a merger, takeover, or nothing?? Only time will tell.

It has been reported by Reuters that AOL and CBS will combine their online radio initiatives. The No. 2 U.S. radio broadcaster CBS Radio said on Friday it will combine its more than 150 online radio stations with AOL’s more than 200 online stations.

In the joint venture CBS will control the advertising sales division. CBS Radio plans to launch this spring a new online radio player that incorporates the two companies’ services and will also support Apple Inc’s Mac computers.

It has been reported that Buy.at has been purchased by AOL. Buy.at is a UK based affiliate marketing network which has been sold for an undisclosed amount, but it supposed to be based around the $150 million mark. This will be a nice win fall for DFJ Esprit who backed the company (who also backed Skype, SugarCRM and Technorati).

It has also been reported that Buy.at will now operate as a wholly-owned business unit of Advertising.com. Both companies will now be attached to the upcoming Platform-A, which will be launched by AOL. There are 4 other key companies within the platform, including Tacoda, AdTech, Third Screen Media and Quigo.These are companies are strictly related to ad service, but buy.at arent, they are based around closer customer and retailer relationships. This is a nice boost for the Platform-A that AOL is trying to develop, but im worried that after all of these purchased can AOL actually get it right and product an advertising Platform that can control the market and even challenge Google in the areas they already dominate. Im sure AOL will control the display advertising section of the market and Google will continue to control the text/search based end of the market. This being said watch out for Platform-A to launch and then 6 months later IPO!

AOL has been putting the final touches on its new ad conglomerate, Platform A. AOL has confirmed that they have purchased Quigo for a reported $340 million. Quigo is a contextual ad network which has two main services, AdSonar and FeedPoint. Adsonar is very similar to Google’s Adsense in that it provides targeted advertisements on various websites, and FeedPoint is their search engine marketing tool.

AOL Chairman and CEO Randy Falco said, “With Quigo, we are putting the final pieces of Platform A in place. We will be able to offer advertisers and publishers the most advanced set of tools, including contextual and behavioral targeting, superior analytics, and access to the largest display network in the marketplace.”

Quigo will become part of Platform A which already includes Advertising.com, Tacoda, Third Screen Media, Lightningcast and Adtech.

Overall, the purchases that AOL have made has been a bit surprising. All of these ad networks are in a variety of areas and it is going to be very interesting over the next few years to see if they can put them all into one neat package. Targeting users is vital when it comes to PPC marketing and the company that can be the most efficient at this will control the future of PPC.

The big news yesterday was that AOL has released approx 20% of its entire staff. That is about 2,000 people. AllthingsD received an email from AOL CEO explaining what they are trying to achieve and why restructuring was necessary.

AOL has purchased3 key advertising networks this year: Tacoda, AdTech and Third Screen Media. These networks will be tied in to AOLs main advertising network, Advertising.com. The overall aim for AOL must be to either, merge these networks and then sell or IPO. However, with the downsizing they have been doing will they any staff left by the time they sell or IPO?

Web Chat Startup eBuddy, who are currently in competition with Meebo, just added support for Myspace instant messaging.

eBuddy now supports MySpace IM, AOL, ICQ, GoogleTalk, MSN and Yahoo. Log in to some of all of these services from the eBuddy home page.

MySpace says they now have over 18.5 million users of the service, which soft launched in September 2006. By comparison, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ and AIM have 224 million, 93 million, 30 million and 30 million users, respectively (Comscore worldwide - July 2007). GTalk trails the rest, with just 4.8 million users.