Along with my colleague Marshall Sponder at webmetricsguru, I was surprised to see AOL (TWX) buy Tacoda. On the surface it would definitely seem that advertising.com should have been enough for their behavioral-targeting needs. This obviously says it isn't.
Referring to the projected growth of the behavioral-targeting market to $3.8 billion by 2011, the New York Post adds "Tacoda is poised to be a prime beneficiary of the growth in behavioral-targeting spending, with CEO Curt Viebranz claiming that revenue for 2007 is on track to triple what the company brought in last year."
Ever since AOL decided to change from an ISP to a free, ad supported portal, I felt they had some tremendous potential in this area that they could quietly go about building up; and they have!
With the reputation problem they had for years, to me it's given them the opportunity to fly under the radar of media for some time while they build up their arsenal.
AOL may just be one of the more underrated, big online companies in the world right now. But with the online ad market heating up, and no end in sight, they're positioned to be advertising powerhouse; and they just got better.
Tacoda offers ads to 4,000 Web sites that reach 125 million people.
Comment Preview