At first glance, Verizon’s $4.4 billion acquisition of AOL may have seemed like a white elephant. However, this deal is a great move for two laggards to make a bold bet on the future pillars of communications and business: mobile and streaming content.

Companies of every type are scrambling to ensure that they stay relevant during the coming sea change. The smart phone has continued to create ripple effects in the ways that people interact, do business and live their lives. Media is seeing the leading edge of this change, with people consuming news, entertainment and video content via mobile at unprecedented rates.

What this means for businesses:

1. Advertising technology

Unbeknownst to most, AOL has been building its stable of advertising technologies to service marketers. Verizon will leverage these technologies to serve digital advertising across web, mobile and television platforms. With its telecommunications network and data assets, the company can now offer targeted ads with more precision.

2. Mobile

With people increasingly consuming media via mobile, Verizon wants to place itself at the forefront of developing channels to reach users where their attention is focused.

3. Data consolidation

As a telecommunications carrier, Verizon has access to the enormous volumes of data that pass through its network. When coupled with multiple data sources and technologies that enable high-scale analytics, businesses can generate extremely powerful innovations.

What this means for consumers:

1. Greater precision in targeted advertising

For better or worse, you can now be targeted for advertising in much more sophisticated ways. On the positive side, hopefully we will be served with advertising that is relevant to our needs. On the negative side, expect to see more ads as you transverse the internet.

2. New streaming models/disruption in the streaming content market

The interesting subplot of this deal is that it signals large companies are willing to invest in innovation and new models. Some models will fail spectacularly – the same way America Online fell into obsolescence – others will pave the way for exciting new consumer applications.

3. Data privacy concerns

The data privacy landscape grows ever more murky, with no definitive regulations to this point. The current environment is the wild west of analytics using consumer data, and the more sophisticated tracking, collecting and processing grows, the more personal privacy is eroded.

One thing is certain, this is just the beginning of changes that we will see in the way that businesses reach consumers.

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