• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, February 3, 2009

AOL Tuesday named former Yahoo executive Greg Coleman as president of its online ad platform Platform-A.

Coleman most recently served as president and CEO of search and ad targeting technology startup NetSeer and previously was at Yahoo for seven years. Coleman replaces Lynda Clarizio, formerly the president AOL's Ad.com, who replaced Curt Viebranz as president of Platform-A just over a year ago because he reportedly wasn't integrating its various parts fast enough.He will report directly to AOL President and COO Ron Grant.

AOL is now focused on growing three mutually dependent online businesses to take advantage of the shifting media landscape: Advertising through Platform-A, publishing through MediaGlow--which is AOL's newly launched business unit--and social media through People Networks.

"Greg's a seasoned sales pro who understands that online brand building is the next frontier in digital advertising," said AOL Chairman and CEO Randy Falco in a statement.

Platform-A reaches 70 top publishing assets that make up MediaGlow, which includes the AOL.com home page and AOL branded sites such as AOL Money & Finance, AOL Living and AOL News, along with dozens of niche sites such as WalletPop, Bloggingstocks, Engadget, Autoblog, and AOL's commerce sites, including AOL Travel, AOL Real Estate and AOL Autos.

The MediaGlow unit is expected to create more than 30 editorial sites in 2009.<

AOL's social media business unit, People Networks, is also expected to launch a number of new products in 2009 in connection with its next version of Bebo as well as efforts at socializing third party web sites.

Prior to NetSeer which Coleman joined last March, he was Yahoo's EVP of global sales and was responsible for all advertising revenues worldwide, which reportedly grew from $600 million to over $6 billion during his tenure. Prior to joining Yahoo, Coleman was president of Reader's Digest magazine publishing.