Whaa….. AOL Buys Tacoda Behavioral Targeting Network took be by surprise today! Not that it should surprise me that AOL would buy a Behavioral Targeting Network, as reported by Conversionrater, but that it would buy something similar to what it already had in the Behavioral Targeting at Advertising.com:
"..AOL just made the next move in the chess match with the acquisition of behavioral targeting display network Tacoda.
It’s definitely and interesting move as AOL already owns the largest display ad network in Advertising.com, which is also known to have behavioral targeting capabilities. This would lead me to believe that Tacoda’s behavioral targeting is superior than Advertising.com’s, or that AOL was simply after more advertisers, publishers, and people. Most likely it’s a combination of both."
It must be inventory related - as noted in Conversionrater:
"… As venture capitalist Brad Burnham says on the Union Square Ventures blog:
That said, the combination of TACODA’s seasoned management, technology, database, and experience with behavioral targeting and AOL Time Warner’s reach as a media company and (through Advertising.com) as an ad network, could become the foundation for creating the dominant display ad network on the Internet."
My guess is that all the independent behavioral display ad networks will end up being bought up by bigger companies fairly quickly. Read/Write Web also has a writeup about AOL Acquires Behavioral Targeting Firm Tacoda by Josh Catone which has a little more information about the purchase. Also, GigaOM suggests that there is a massive consolidation of the ad-network market going on just now - TACODA, AOL’s Buzzword Buyout.
