More from paidContent.org’s interview with AOL (NYSE: TWX) COO Ron Grant following the announcement that AOL was forming a new ad network called Platform A and moving corporate HQ to Manhattan. The first installment can be found here,

International plans: Grant: “We are going to be expanding internationally. We’re going to have a relentless focus on building.” AOL plans localized portals in 30 territories by the end of 2009. Grant: “We are behind internationally. We sold off access so we’re starting from a very small base; I think we’re in seven countries now. We start off about 100 million uniques (through AIM, Winamop, Mapquest and ICQ).” As for Platform A, “we are going to take this monetization global.” An expanded deal to be the default portal and search engine on HP computers sold worldwide was announced Monday as well. Grant referred to it as “an investment” but didn’t disclose details.

Platform A: Grant hopes the new ad platform will launch by the end of the year. It’s being headed by former Tacoda CEO Curt Viebranz,. Grant said the original attraction to Tacoda was the company’s technology and server side analytics but during due diligence they became very impressed by Tacoda’s management team. The sale closed only a few days ago and now Viebranz is one of the top executives at AOL as EVP and president of Platform A. Effective immediately, Viebranz will be responsible for integrating and operating a group of diverse legacy and recently acquired advertising operations. Grant said AOL has been working on operational issues with the companies acquired since he and CEO Randy Falco arrived late last year: “What you now finally see is a common architecture, a common approach.” But he doesn’t the acquired companies to lose their edge: “That’s the real important thing, you don’t want to stifle innovation ... but you need it all to work within ad.com.”

New HQ: Why move HQ to New York when advertising already had a presence there? Grant: “We’ve been working on this all the way back since Randy and I got to AOL—how to expand this approach and at the same time get closer to advertisers. ... You should think of it as you’re going to have the advertising folks there, programming folks there, corporate decision making folks there.” They’ll be a few blocks from Union Square. (The company has leased two floors of the 770 Broadway building.)