While many big video portals and sites are keen on building traffic to their sites, Aol is putting considerable effort around the syndication of content. This strategy is being driven by last September's acquisition of 5Min.
It's all about taking advantage of the enormous demand for video content far beyond a publisher's site, says Ran Harnevo, CEO of 5Min now heads video at Aol, "We understand scale."
According to comScore, Aol has risen, over the past 12 months, from number ten to number seven among the top 10 U.S. video sites, passing Hulu, Turner and NBC Universal.
Harnevo says the Aol Video offerings are varied, from the premium content on the site to that of a broad network of publishers whose content is syndicated via Aol.
Harnevo spoke at the Beet.TV Video Strategy Summit at Bloomberg last week. This video is an excerpt from the program.
Andy Plesser
Update: 4.13 comScore reported today that Aol is now the number two video site in the United States.
Disclosure: Beet.TV has a syndication agreement with 5Min.
