AOL gets widgety with Goowy acquisition
Acquisition is next step in a nearly yearlong partnership. The Time Warner unit plans to use Goowy's technology for interactive widget ads.
AOL announced on Monday that it has purchased Goowy Media, a company that has created technology for widget creation and analytics reporting. AOL has been partnering with Goowy since early in 2007; financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
To consumers, Goowy is best-known as the parent company of Yourminis, a widget creation and discovery engine.
But the Time Warner unit's aim with Goowy is more likely on the advertising front. AOL recently relocated its headquarters from Virginia to New York to bolster its Madison Avenue street cred; the former online-service powerhouse has been attempting to reshape itself as a digital-media company with profits stemming primarily from advertising, not subscription revenues.
AOL stated in a press release on Monday that Goowy's technology will be used in part for widget-based advertising, providing both more interactive content and detailed statistics on where and how the widgets are being used.
