Always darkest before the dawn

One of the driving factors behind the acquisition by ad vendor portals and networks is the realization that portals themselves are becoming less of a force in user's online lives, according to the Associated Press.

Unlike user behavior five or more years ago, the online experience is increasingly centered around non-portal sites.

Yahoo, MSN, AOL and even Google grew in the early years of the internet by trying to be all things to all people, creating myriad pages for ad placement.

Now social networks, personalized homepages and other user-centric content destinations increasingly serve as users' starting point before they migrate to other sites.

As a result, emphasis for portals has shifted to selling ads on sites of others' pages.
Acquiring networks that specialize in placing ads on blogs and other consumer-generated sites has thus become crucial for the old school, since this area is expected to experience growth in the coming years.