AOL has announced it has purchased Sphere Source, Inc., a San Francisco-based content aggregator service. Sphere offers content aggregation technology based on contextually-sensitive searches, with the goal of bringing together mainstream content with so-called “social content” from blogs, commentaries, and other social networking and non-mainstream sources. AOL already had a relationship with Sphere, which developed widgets already deployed on myAOL and AOL’s news sites. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
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AOL To Buy Bebo for $850 Million
AOL is looking to make itself relevant in the age of social networking, announcing today it will be acquiring social networking site Bebo for somme $850 million in cash. Although Bebo doesn’t have as large a presence in the U.S. as MySpace or Facebook, London-based Bebo boasts more than 40 million users worldwide and is the leading social networking site in the UK, Ireland, and New Zealand.
A major push into the social networking world is the latest move in AOL’s broad transition from a dial-up service offering a walled-garden approach to content to an online advertising giant that offers free content and service to attract users. The companies have apparently been working on the deal for the last six months.
AOL Shifts Its Ad Biz, Bundles with HP
It’s been many years since America Online represented perhaps the world’s largest online service and gateway to the Internet, but the folks currently running AOL don’t want you to count them out just yet. Today, AOL made a series of significant strategic announcements that have the company bundling toolbar and portal software with Hewlett-Packard PCs, launching a mammoth new Internet advertising business under the monicker “Platform A,” and—reflecting its new ad-centric focus—relocating its corporate headquarters from Virginia to the heart of the advertising world, New York City.
AOL Buys Online Ad Firm Tacoda
Competition in the online advertising arena continues to heat up, as AOL announces plans to acquire online advertising firm Tacoda for an undisclosed amount. Tacoda delivers advertisements to Internet users based on behavorial targetting, enabling advertisers to push their messages to specific types of Internet users based on data like the types of Internet sites they visit. Behavior-based marketing was recently estimated to account for $350 million in advertising spending in 2006; tracking firm eMarketer says it may be worth $3.8 billion by 2011.
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