UPDATE Apparently, AOL HAS done something with Truveo. They’ve revamped their old ‘AOL Video‘. Ah…traitors. And it seems not just to Truveo, but to Google as well (get competitor to invest, use competitors money to buy something that highly competes with the competitor itself).
So “the big” news this morning (apart from Steve Jobs’ announcements at Macworld) was that AOL bought Truveo. I mean, I literally woke up this morning to find all these blogs that I read covering this (and yesterday it was Yahoo! Acquires Webjay). Not that I have anything against this (I’ve reviewed Truveo before) but it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it.
Yes, I’m happy this it’s one of my other predictions coming true, but it just seems that Google, Yahoo!, and now [after Weblogs, Inc.] AOL are basically the Microsoft of the 90s (surprisingly, Microsoft isn’t in this now). They’re buying the little guys, which is awesome for the little guys, and adding them to their line of products. Of course, some companies are remaining the same, like Flickr, Delicious, Weblogs Inc and Bloglines, which is really the kind of dedication I like to see (not some “get a vc, get programmers, get acquired, on to startup #2″), but some others, namely Google’s Urchin and Keyhole, and Yahoo!’s MusicMatch and another one I can’t recall, are really getting Microsoft’d in this.
Anyhow, getting back to what this post is really meant to be about, I have to admit, even though I predicted 2006 = AOL’s year, I would’ve never ever predicted Truveo would be the next on the line (it’s one of those products I used a lot and then forgot about). Congrats to the guys at Truveo. I love them for obvious reasons and can’t wait to see what AOL does with them. YouTube, anyone?
