WebProNews

Late last week, AOL released some rather dismal third-quarter financial figures.  This branch of Time Warner isn’t about to go under, however, and its acquisition of Yedda should prove that point.

Yedda is a question-and-answer service that’s seen a reasonable amount of success since its 2006 launch.  Yedda’s price tag remains unknown, yet since it’s raised about $2.5 million in funding, the service probably wasn’t too cheap.

That’s interesting, since AOL is supposed to be focusing on Platform A (which relates to advertising).  The acquisition of Quigo fed into this drive, but the additional purchase of Yedda doesn’t seem to relate.  So, despite fairly stunning losses (subscription revenues are down by 56 percent) and heavy layoffs, AOL’s not giving up on every non-advertising option.

Instead, it seems willing to go up against services like Yahoo Answers and WikiAnswers.  In reference to Yedda, Michael Arrington notes, “[T]hey also partner with others to power independent Q&A services as well.  There are more than fifty partners working with Yedda now - example partners are ePals and The JobNetwork.  Yedda says those partners now drive 90% of their total traffic.”

If AOL’s dreams come true, those partners will also drive some fresh revenue to its door.