by: Allen Weiner

How fitting that May 12th is the 90th birthday of Yankee great and Hall of Famer Yogi Berra. The man who coined the phrase, “It’s deja vu all over again” had the foresight to describe the $4-plus billion deal in which Verizon purchased AOL.

It’s amazing how 15 years goes so quickly, but it seems like just yesterday that AOL and Time Warner joined forces to take over the media world. Without beating a dead horse, it’s safe to say that was a bust. Will the Verizon-AOL deal fare any better

Aside from its deep pockets, Verizon brings with it a large mobile subscriber base that generated more than $23 billion in wireless revenue for Q4 2014. Verizon, as with all major telecoms, owns a very sophisticated billing and collection business that is able to handle a lot of transactions (and no doubt is underserved). AOL has Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Engadget, and a number of other news/information properties that pull in tens of millions of uniques each month. It also has a programmatic ad platform and, of great interest to Verizon, a very strong original video business.

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This article was originally posted on VideoInk and is reposted on [a]listdaily via a partnership with the news publication, which is the online video industry’s go-to source for breaking news, features, and industry analysis. Follow VideoInk on Twitter @VideoInkNews, or subscribe via thevideoink.com for the latest news and stories, delivered right to your inbox.