AOL Cuts Video Unit Loose

AOL is expected to announce today that it is hiring Brightcove to handle its video content management after years of taking care of it internally, MediaPost reports.

The report said that the transition is expected to be completed by early next year, and will give Brightcove control over AOL’s video content management, publishing, and playback duties.

“This is about focus and perfect timing,” AOL SVP Fred McIntyre said in the article. “Handing content management over to Brightcove will allow us to refocus our efforts on our expertise in search and discovery with Truveo, and ad optimization with Platform-A and Lightningcast.”

AOL was an early pioneer in offering a full-blown video portal, and for a while was superior to Google in this respect before Google threw in the towel on its own service and picked up YouTube. At any rate, the handoff to Brightcove jives with the going wisdom that AOL is slimming down as it gears up for being split off from Time Warner, as the report said.

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