Internet and communications company AOL has made a move into the mobile market through its acquisition of apps company Rally Up. AOL has been dragging its heels over its mobile strategy, while competitors Yahoo and Google have stolen a jump on the portal…
Internet and communications company AOL has made a move into the mobile market through its acquisition of apps company Rally Up. AOL has been dragging its heels over its mobile strategy, while competitors Yahoo and Google have stolen a jump on the portal by aggressively moving into the mobile sphere.
AOL hopes that the acquisition of the creative talent behind the popular Rally Up and FacePlant mobile apps will act as a catalyst to its mobile business, which has been languishing behind its rivals.
David Temkin, Vice President of Mobile at AOL said: “Within the last year, the Rally Up team has demonstrated its keen understanding of the way that people want to use their mobile devices to interact, share and better communicate and of the tools necessary to address those needs.”
Rally Up is a location-based service allowing subscribers private micro-blogging with location, and the sharing of text and photos and direct messaging. FacePlant is a prototype app allowing users to see which of their friends are available to chat on the FaceTime app and has been formatted for use with iPhone 4.
The terms of the agreement were not publically released, however various media sources believe that the transaction could have been in the region of US$10m.
AOL will probably keep the Rally Up app going but the importance is that the mobile company’s team will take a large role in helping AOL transition to a mobile-first strategy. This means that the company will have its desktop offerings come to the phones but it will also launch products first for smartphones and feature phones.
The importance of mobile as a platform famously led AOL’s rival Google to declare than in the next decade that desktops could become obsolete, which is why AOL might have forced itself into new paradigm through this purchase.
