William Wei, Business InsiderArianna Huffington, co-founder and editor in chief of The Huffington Post.aVerizon may be considering spinning off some of AOL's content businesses, such as Huffington Post, Engadget, and TechCrunch, following the wirelss carrier's $4.4 billion acquisition of the internet company.
That's according to Peter Kafka at Re/code, who said he has heard that Verizon could spin out content operations with a third partner, such as German publisher Axel Springer.
AOL acquired The Huffington Post for $315 million in 2011.
Tim Armstrong, AOL CEO (who will stay on to run the business after the deal closes,) didn't address the possibility of a spinoff directly, but did say:
"We've spoken to partners about content and scaling," he said. "Obviously we've seen a lot of interest in the content brands we have. So over the course of the summer, stay tuned."
Change is afoot.
As Re/code points out, Verizon is buying into a business that is part content and part ad tech.
AOL has been steadily building out its ad tech stack over the past year or so. And Armstrong (clearly knowing what was about to be announced on Tuesday) said last week that he believes AOL will soon become a in the top three, next to Facebook and Google, in online advertising. It's currently at number 11, according to eMarketer.
Verizon offers AOL the scale it needs to do that. AOL offers Verizon a ready-made ad tech platform.
AOL referenced that in an e-mail to press on Tuesday. The note on why the deal makes sense, didn't reference content brands specifically, but instead pointed to where AOL "leads" in video, mobile, social, video, and programmatic
Disclosure: Axel Springer is an investor in Business Insider.