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We have a winner for Drama 2.0's Understatement of the Year Award.

UK-based social network Bebo has been acquired by Time Warner's AOL for $850m (£418m) in cash.

Bebo, which is particularly popular in the UK with a teenage and young adult audience, has an estimated 40m members worldwide and around 80m unique users. 

AOL yesterday announced it had acquired Buy.at in a move that will see the affiliate network becoming part of its ‘all-in-one’ online ad unit Platform A.

With AOL failing to bag Tradedoubler last year, the deal means it has finally got its teeth into a performance medium that we estimate generated more than £3bn in sales for UK businesses in 2007.

We caught up briefly with Buy.at CEO Kevin Cornils on what the buyout will mean for the company, including cross-selling opportunities, greater reach and cash for expansion abroad.

AOL is being linked to a possible acquisition of Israeli start-up Quigo, which provides contextual ad solutions to Time’s digital properties and other media groups.

Ha’aretz reports that the firm would cost AOL $300m and help boost its ability to compete with Yahoo!, Google et al in the ad targeting space.

Dubbed ‘Platform A’, the group will effectively create a huge ad network out of AOL’s recent acquisitions, including Advertising.com, behavioural targeting network Tacoda, ad serving company AdTech, video ad firm Lightningcast and mobile ad network Third Screen Media.

The deal will see AOL picking up Tacoda’s online ad network, which claims to have access to around 130m people across 4,000 sites.

AOL has stumped up a reported $275m to buy behavioural targeting company Tacoda – a move designed to boost the targeting abilities and reach of its online ad network Advertising.com.

The deal is the latest in a string of acquisitions by the web giant following its shift away from subscriptions onto internet advertising.

Brands are still an important influence on online consumers, according to a new study by AOL and the Henley Centre.

However, the research also asserts that customers are becoming less loyal to brands as a result of their online experience.

AOL is set to launch an coupons programme allowing users to save money on online purchases with selected etailers.

Dubbed AOL Shortcuts, the project will mimic real-world coupons promotions, but will instead ask consumers to click web ads in order to receive offers.