AOL Inc is reportedly poised to buy Israeli startup Mirabilis Inc for $300m in cash and shares. Mirabilis produces the friend-finding ICQ software, which AOL duplicated in its Buddy List feature. ICQ takes a list of the user’s friends and notifies the user whenever a friend connects to the net. The story broke through Israel’s business newspaper Globes (http://www.globes.co.il/), but has not yet been confirmed with officials at either company. Meanwhile on the other side of the planet, AOL’s NetFind search engine, powered by Excite, is to be localized for AOL Canada and AOL Japan. The agreement requires Excite to add double-byte Japanese characters to its technology.
