Verizon closes deal with AOL, eyes mobile video technology

Verizon now has mail from the king of the vintage dial-up Internet service.

In a $4.4 billion deal first announced in May, Verizon Communications Inc., a modern-day tech giant, has completed the acquisition of AOL, a tech giant of the 1990s with the famous “You’ve Got Mail” slogan.

AOL’s wall street presence goes away in a puff of smoke and they are now a wholly owned subsidiary of Verizon. AOL’s Chief Executive Officer Tim Armstrong will continue to steer the company in the right direction, with help from Bob Toohey, president of Verizon’s Digital Media Services, and Marni Walden, Verizon executive vice president and president of Product Innovation and New Business.

Although some might consider AOL something of a “has-been” from the dot-com era, Verizon is getting quite a few goodies, such as AOL’s websites, which includes the Huffington Post, a news content provider, and popular gadget sites TechCrunch and Engadget. This deal looks better once you throw in the numbers for AOL of around 200 million unique visitors each month and 2 million Internet subscribers.

But that’s not all Verizon has their eyes on in the AOL deal. Nowadays, AOL is big into online mobile video services and has an attractive advertising technology. Verizon will probably use their existing Digital Media Services and AOL’s mobile advertising capabilities to gain traction in the mobile video market and ensure a brighter digital future.

As Verizon moves forward with this deal under wraps, maybe the next mail from AOL will be about success for Verizon in the mobile video and advertising space.