• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, August 8, 2006

AOL this week will go live with a promotion for Focus Features' "The Ground Truth" on its new social networking platform, AIM Pages. The initiative marks an example of Hollywood harnessing social networks, and also represents AOL's attempt to build an online community--in this case, military veterans and their supporters--around content placed on AIM Pages.

For the deal, AOL and Universal Pictures' Focus Features have created an AIM page for the film--a documentary about soldiers in Iraq and their return home--that includes photos of the featured soldiers as well as video and text blogs by them. The page also invites users to add their own content and features a link to Moviefone, where visitors will be able to buy movie tickets.

AOL's Jordan Kurzweil, vice president for original programming, said the goal is to do more than just promote the documentary--which will only be in theaters briefly next month. Rather, AOL hopes to leverage the movie to create an online community of war veterans and others who personally relate to the film. "We're using the guts of the film to create a community around the topic that's addressed in the movie," Kurzweil said. "We're creating an experience online that stands alone in itself."

Eventually, he said, AOL wants to build a social networking section around documentaries. "We're hoping that this is a great success and the beginning of a larger documentary platform on AOL," he said, adding that documentaries easily lend themselves to online groups. "Our thought behind documentaries is that you can create these communities around particular topics or issues."

AOL has promoted movies including on AIM in the past, but hasn't previously built out a site as extensive as the one for "The Ground Truth," an AOL spokeswoman said.

Focus Features also has run a campaign with AOL before. Last year, Focus Features ran a campaign for the movie "Cry Wolf" on AOL's instant messenger service.