AOL Buys Socialthing! & Rolls TACODA Ad Platform Into Advertising.com

 
In the last couple of days, Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX) subsidiary, AOL LLC has been making some significant moves.  The first move was the acquisition of Socialthing! and the second was to cancel inventory contracts with TACODA. 

Socialthing!
Socialthing! is a social aggregation website that has functionalities that are very similar to Friendfeed.  Socialthing! reports when users update their Twitter profile, upload photos to Flickr, Diggs a story, listens to music on Last.fm and updates a message on Pownce.  Socialthing! was started by Ben Brightwell and Matt Galligan in Boulder, CO last year. 

Socialthing! was in private beta when they were acquired. The reason for the acquisition may revolve around AOL’s interest in hiring Socialthing!’s team members more than owning the company itself.

TACODA / Advertising.com Roll-Up
AOL bought TACODA for $275 million last summer.  The reason why TACODA is shutting down and being rolled into another AOL advertising subsidiary, Platform A is because both companies were buying the same advertisement inventory from the same third party companies.  Platform A’s Advertising.com has a larger reach, so it did not make sense to have multiple contracts between two companies under the same subsidiary.

TACODA had a difficult time integrating with Platform A is because many employees quit or was laid off after the acquisition.  During the time of the acquisition, TACODA had 97 employees and now only 35 are left. 

Some of TACODA’s featured members include Associated Press, CBS, DowJones, Earthlink, eBay, Food Network, HGTV, Hoovers, HowStuffWorks, IAC, Kelley Blue Book, NBC, The New York Times, Parenthood.com, and USA Today.

Related Links:
1. ReadWriteWeb
2. paidContent

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