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It’s official – Verizon completed their acquisition of AOL, to the tune of $4.4 billion. So what does this mean for the direction of these two giant companies?

In the official internal memo that AOL sent out, they state that the move is a step towards “becoming the largest media technology company in the world.” They also wrote that becoming a subsidiary of Verizon will help them “fully open up the mobile frontier” and be in a leading position in mobile and mobile video.

However, it’s also worth noting that with this deal, Verizon also acquires all of AOL’s media properties. The company owns a few major brands, including Huffington Post, TechCrunch, and Engadget. And considering that Huffington Post alone has 81 million monthly worldwide visitors (and has seen 12% YoY growth in unique visitors), that’s a pretty significant acquisition.

This infographic explains everything you need to know about what Verizon gained in terms of media:

On Verizon’s end of the deal, they explain that buying AOL marks “a significant step in building digital and video platforms,” and while it’s unclear what that means, many speculate that they are primarily interested in AOL’s fast-growing advertising business. And seeing as revenue from their real-time bidding platform grew over 40% last November, that’s certainly an attractive selling point.

So, what does the acquisition of these brands mean for digital media? Contrary to reports claiming that Verizon might spin off or sell the media brands, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong is adamant that the Verizon deal will be promising for their global expansion, specifically Huffington Post’s.

As of right now, it sounds like the deal doesn’t change much for these media brands, but only time will tell how they’ll be ultimately be impacted by their new ownership.

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