As expected, from a story we broke in BoomTown more than a week ago, AOL confirmed it has bought the Israeli content-targeting ad network Quigo.

The sale price, said sources, was a lofty $300 million, around what Yahoo paid for data analytics ad network BlueLithium in September.

Well, it’s probably a good thing for AOL as it tries to turn itself from the onetime online digital home for consumers to what amounts to a glorified ad network.

That’s probably a good idea, given that the service has lost about one-third of its paying subscribers this year, which is no surprise after it went free. AOL now has just over 10 million, but is banking less on them than on selling ads all over the Web for its future.

Still, as sites like Facebook and others add users to their services, it is also more than a little depressing to me, given AOL’s history of pioneering the idea of a robust Internet community, where users created what former AOL top exec Ted Leonsis used to call a “permanent online presence.”

At the time of the merger between AOL and Time Warner at the turn of the century, AOL had more than 30 million such users, an audience that was bound to decline, given the lack of ability to take advantage of many opportunities for the company over the years.

I have always likened Time Warner’s handling of its AOL subsidiary–which I think comes a bit from its lingering corporate rage over the disastrous merger–to watching someone fall down stairs very slowly and deliberately.

At first you feel bad, and then you’re simply annoyed at the sheer waste of a once-great brand.

For example, it never built an ad network of its own (although former CEO Jon Miller’s purchase of Advertising.com was a lifesaver); it never spun the service off when it could have benefited from being on its own in terms of innovation; and it never made the kind of key acquisitions that would have kept its features fresh for users and prevented an exodus.

In my second of two books about AOL, called “There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere,” I jokingly referred to Dick Parsons, who recently stepped down as CEO, as a “noncarbonated beverage,” whose greatest legacy at Time Warner will doubtlessly be steadying the situation at the company after the merger mess.

Well, that’s been a good thing, of course, but it has also meant a stultifying recent record for AOL in years that have seen a really substantive boom in the Internet space.

In fact, the only real corporate focus thus far seems to be on jobs cuts, which is fine, but not exactly what I would call a vision for the future.

Nonetheless, in his new job as Time Warner CEO, Jeff Bewkes (pictured here) still has a lot of opportunity going forward. The ad network is a good idea, as I said, but AOL faces a lot of competition in the arena from companies like Google, Yahoo and now Facebook and MySpace. And no slackers here.

And it is encouraging when AOL invests in interesting subsidiaries like Truveo and UserPlane, as well as holding a piece of content sites like TMZ.com.

Why not more focus on drastically improving its email and communications tools? Why doesn’t AOL double down in the fast-growing mobile market? And it still has great assets in pieces it owns like ICQ.

Even more interesting would be a spinoff of AOL or even a sale to a Yahoo or Microsoft, creating a more powerful entity in which Time Warner could own a big stake.

Incredibly, after horses that have left the barn at AOL, there is a lot AOL can be going forward.

The question is: Does Bewkes have some fizz in him to do it?

Backed by Benchmark Partners, Redpoint Ventures and Accel Partners, San Mateo, Calif.-based Zimbra’s clients include Comcast, many ISPs and a number of colleges. The Wall Street Journal’s Robert A. Guth wrote about the company last year.

In a post by Om Malik on his GigaOm blog, he noted: “The Zimbra-built email client marries the email and calendaring applications with visual voicemail, and eventually will tie into other Comcast triple-play services.”

Yahoo’s been on a bit of an acquistion roll of late, grabbing behavioral ad network BlueLithium for $300 million earlier this month and news aggregator BuzzTracker last week for $5 million.

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang continues on his 100-day march–and now seems to be making a number of interesting moves.

The acquisition was within Yahoo Senior Vice President Brad “Peanut Butter Manifesto” Garlinghouse’s unit.

Yahoo is briefing reporters today on the deal, but left BoomTown off the list. Big mistake, as it just makes us cranky and bored!

Now, as it turns out, more than ever after it forked over $300 million yesterday for an ad network that specializes in the hyper-trendy data analytics arena.

The savvy purchase marks the 50th day of Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang’s 100-day trek to finding nirvana for the troubled Web company. This day, it seems, by spending a pile of cash for an innovative ad network called BlueLithium.

It is clearly a score for its investors Walden Venture Capital and 3i. (And interestingly, its board includes Interactive Advertising Bureau co-founder Rich LeFurgy, now at Archer Advisors, and also former Time Warner and CompuServe exec Scott Kauffman).

Why Yahoo could not have created this kind of thing itself is a query for another day, but there is no question it will give it a nice push in its quest to service a range of other Web sites beyond Yahoo with a more sophisticated ad network.

The venture-backed BlueLithium, which has been around since early 2004, basically buys display ad banners from other Web sites and resells them to bigger advertisers using behavioral targeting as its silver bullet.

You know the drill: If I am searching on Rome, I must be interested in going there and, presto, I get an ad for plane flights or hotels or tours…blah, blah, blah.

Another pitch of outfits like BlueLithium, of course, is that consumers are happier because they get just the right ads served up to them.

“By combining behavioral, contextual and demographic click stream data with advanced analytics and sophisticated ad targeting, we’re able to deliver ads that people are actually interested in,” notes its Web site. “This leads to higher response rates and sales for marketers and more revenue for publishers. But it also leads to higher quality ads and less clutter for Internet users, which is just as important.”

Oh, yes, thanks for the favor!

In fact, such ad cyber-stalking–even when done with strict privacy rules–is surely getting creepier than ever, but is obviously inevitable.

And necessary, it seems for Yahoo, which saw a big falloff in its own graphical ad business on its sites recently and needs more variety to broker to ever-pickier advertisers. It follows its acquisition of the remaining part of Right Media, another online ad exchange.

Why the company is called BlueLithium is not entirely clear to me, although lithium salts are excellent mood stabilizers, which can work on both mania and depression.

Perfect for Yahoo these days!

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.