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Thursday, May 22, 2008

AOL Video Goes Global

image AOL today announced the next steps in its ambitious global expansion effort with the international launch of AOL Video, http://video.aol.com. The new offerings will let consumers find and watch millions of videos in Canada, India and Taiwan at http://video.aol.ca, http://videoportal.aol.in, http://videoportal.aol.tw, respectively, without having to visit multiple websites. Additional plans are underway to launch video portals in the United Kingdom, France and Germany in the fall. The portal launches build on the success of the international launch of the Truveo video search engine, which recently unveiled sites in Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, The Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey and United Kingdom.

“As the only online destination with access to programming from the four major U.S. television networks, content from more than 20 major cable networks and an index of more than 170 million searchable videos, AOL has been at the forefront of the huge growth of online video consumption,” said Kevin Conroy, Executive Vice President, AOL. “We're thrilled to be bringing the dynamic combination of AOL Video and Truveo to the rest of the world, giving users direct access to the leading destination for finding and watching video online.”

The video sites will be strategically integrated into Canada, India and Taiwan’s AOL portal products. Each country site will be localized and will showcase a streamlined design to drive engagement and monetization. Standard and customized local advertising packages will be available. The Truveo platform will be leveraged to dynamically program the portal as well as power video search.

By combining industry-leading technology with a unique, easy-to-use user experience, the AOL Video portal has become one of the fastest growing sites on the Internet. Over the past 12 months, skyrocketing consumer demand for online video has propelled the number of unique visitors on AOL Video to grow to 17 million per month. In the same period, page views have grown to 96 million.

“Viewing online video is likely the fastest growing behavior in the history of the Internet, and AOL Video makes it easy for users around the globe to find and consume the video they are looking for,” said Fred McIntyre, Senior Vice President, AOL Video. “Consumers want just one place where they can go to find and watch all of the videos they're looking for, and our new international video portals give them just that: a single website that brings together millions of videos from across the Web.”

As part of its international growth plans, AOL now has a presence in 21 countries and plans to expand to 30 countries by the end of 2008. Offerings in most of these countries include AOL portals as well as AOL/HP co-branded portals and services.

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