AOL Plans to Expand Its Reach, Launches Video Portal in India, China, and Taiwan

In an attempt to turn into a full-fledged portal destination, AOL recently announced that it will launch its video service versions in India, Taiwan, and China as part of an aggressive global expansion.

AOL is a Time Warner Inc.’s Internet division, which seems to be getting transformed as an advertising dependent, free web site. Further, the plan is to convert AOL into a one-stop shop for advertising services for other firms.

Fred McIntyre, AOL Video senior vice president stated that it will also launch versions of its video portal, AOL Video by autumn in France, United Kingdom and Germany.

Truveo, AOL’s video search technology, which has searched or indexed, and sorted related information on more than 170 million videos in sixteen nations including Hong Kong, Russia, France, and Germany, is the one around which the basis of the services is build.

In order to strengthen its expansion program, AOL will also start offering local versions of its men’s lifestyle website Asylum in India, United Kingdom, Australia, Italy, and New Zealand. Each of the regions will comprise of a local editor that will create local content as well as syndicate programming from the U.S. version.

Moreover, Asylum, which was initially launched in the U.S. in December, will also be launched in several other parts of South America and Europe this year.

With worldwide access of online videos from the U.S. being held up by copyright licenses and negotiated on a regional basis, AOL has agreed on deals with local programming partners concerning its regional sites.

Even though the online advertising development has been moving slow since the last few quarters, AOL has been able to attract record number of visitors, as per comScore Media Metrix.

The unique visitors to AOL’s programming sites increased to 55.4 million in April, its seventh successive growth month.

However, it also has the same needs to generate larger ad sales from its online popularity.