Crenk

Last year AOL paid $275 million for Tacoda. Now, according to Venture Beat, AOL is dropping the brand and rolling the technology into Platform A’s Ad.com unit. This is a move that shows that AOL are trying to actually combined their Ad.com/Platform-A, but are they going about this in the right way? Im also curious to find out what AOL might be doing with the Tacoda technology, because other companies and myself including would be very interested in licensing this technology from AOL! I must admit that these days im sick to seeing ads from Ad.com and other remnant networks, simply because there is no targeting and I know that the publishers are earnings a crazy low CPM for the ads. Thus, the industry is not benefiting from this, neither the publisher, only the ad networks!

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.

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!

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?