Aol cuts four senior tacoda execs including president daniel jaye

AOL has cut at least four more key Tacoda execs from its roll in the past few weeks, followers departures of the behavioral targeting firm's founder and its former chief in recent months. Gone are President Daniel Jaye, former Tacoda CFO Mark Pinney, SVP ad Sales Matt Arkin and SVP selling and concern Development Larry Allen. The firings come amidst reports that AOL will lay off about 100 staffers from its Platform A ad unit by the end of the month.

According to beginning familiar with the state of affairs, Arkin, Allen, and Pinney were laid off. It's unclear, however, whether Jaye chose to leave or was given the heave-ho.

Since AOL unveiled its plans to combine several late acquired ad engineering properties under the new Platform A umbrella in Sep, Tacoda has slow become a shell of its former self. Dave Lewis Henry Morgan, the company's founder, left AOL in Feb. Most late AOL's EVP of global advertising scheme, the series entrepreneur intends to develop another startup company.

In March, ex-Tacoda CEO Curt Viebranz, who was made head of Platform A at its creative activity last year, was kicked out.

Now, according to beginning familiar with the state of affairs, Jaye, Arkin, Allen, and Pinney have also left the company. Jaye joined Tacoda in April 2007, and replaced Viebranz as president and CEO in Sep after Viebranz was chosen to lead the Platform A division. Both Jaye and Lewis Henry Morgan were still listed on the "executive director Team" page of Tacoda's Web site as of Fri.

Pinney, who co-founded ad web Real Media with Lewis Henry Morgan, became Tacoda's CFO in 2004 and was named head of concern planning for Platform A in Oct 2007. Arkin came on board as Tacoda's SVP Ad Sales in 2005, and Allen was hired as Tacoda's SVP selling and concern development in 2006.

Some beginning chalk up the Tacoda executive cuts to politics. It has been rumored and reported that Lynda Clarizio, Viebranz's replacement and former Advertising.com president, didn't support AOL's acquisition of Tacoda. Advertising.com, AOL's giant ad network, had its own behavioral targeting capabilities before the Tacoda purchase in July 2007.

The Platform A unit includes Tacoda, mobile ad network Third Screen Media, contextual text ad network Quigo, ad management firm AdTech, and affiliate marketing firm Buy.at.