AOL to Bottle Up Lightningcast


AOL is expanding its broadband video advertising empire with the acquisition
of privately held Lightningcast.

The Washington D.C.-based Lightningcast is a developer of a broadband video
advertising platform as well as audio ad insertion and campaign management
technologies.


Lightningcast and AOL are hardly strangers. AOL has been using
Lightningcast’s platform since 2002, first for AOL Radio and then for AOL
Video.


The new acquisition will be merged under AOL’s Advertising.com unit with all
34 of Lightningcast’s employees.

Lightningcast’s InStream broadband video
insertion network will be combined with Advertising.com’s pre-roll video
network under the InStream name. AOL claims that that the combined network
will have 175 million monthly video streams spanning 300 Web sites. The
combined offering will give advertisers the ability to target video
campaigns across the network.


“This acquisition will provide a huge infusion of talent, technology, and
publisher relationships for Advertising.com at a time when streaming video
is growing at a blistering pace,” said Mike Kelly, President, AOL Media
Networks, which oversees Advertising.com in a statement.


Earlier this year, AOL acquired video search company Truveo for an undisclosed sum.

An AOL spokesperson told internetnews.com at the time that the deal was the largest since AOL acquired Advertising.com for $435 million in June of 2004.


The video broadband marketplace is expected to reach $16 billion by the end
of the decade, according to ABI Research.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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