AOL Acquires 5min Media
AOL has acquired 5min Media, a company that syndicates short-form instructional videos across the Web. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
5min Media produces general-interest content that often proves popular on search engines. Its current roster of clips includes videos titled “How to Sort Dirty Laundry” and “How to Check Your Car’s Oil Level.” The content is similar to the videos produced by Demand Media’s fast-growing eHow.
AOL’s deal for 5min would seem to thrust the company further into the emerging low-cost, search-driven content space populated by Demand and Yahoo’s Associated Content. AOL already manages its own freelancer-centric content division Seed.com, and earlier this year it purchased StudioNow, a Web video creation and distribution platform.
“With 5min Media we’ll be able to add more video inventory to our pages,” said AOL CEO Tim Armstrong. “Importantly, we’ll also be able to identify video content holes among our sites, tap our StudioNow capabilities to fill those needs and create a truly ‘demand-informed’ video library.”
UPDATE: AOL also acquird tech news service TechCrunch today.
