By Kenneth Li
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The chief executive of Time Warner Inc.'s (TWX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) AOL unit said on Wednesday the acquisition market for online advertising technology is heating up, and AOL is interested in companies with expertise in targeting consumer behavior.
AOL, which said Wednesday it bought Germany-based ad serving firm Adtech Co., has been on a tear to fill missing parts of its online advertising business after a strategy overhaul last year to focus on ad revenue instead of subscriptions.
"There is clearly a race going on," AOL Chairman and CEO Randy Falco said of the deal-making frenzy in the online ad market.
"This business is more and more about ad serving technologies. I felt that we have to be in every space we could possibly be in," he told the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit in New York
Ad firms with contextual-targeting technologies, which match ads to the content of a Web page a user visits, and behavioral-targeting technologies, which match ads to a user's actions, are among AOL's top targets.
"That's the next big growth spurt," Falco said.
Falco did not identify companies that AOL was seeking.
Quigo Technologies, which specializes in contextual ads; Tacoda, which targets ads to consumer behavior; and Exponential Interactive Inc. have attracted attention, said Stan Sandberg, a principal at New York-based boutique investment bank Gridley & Co. LLC. Continued...
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