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New York ad network 24/7 Media is in talks to sell off its Sabela unit, in an effort to pare down its technology offerings and monetize an investment that it's yet to have working as it had hoped.

Sabela, which forms the backbone of 24/7 Media's Connect for Advertisers and Publishers, is the company's third-party ad serving solution. While such a sale could open a hole in its product line -- Sabela competes with DoubleClick's AdServer, for instance -- but executives maintain it's a prudent choice.

David Moore, the company's chief executive, told atNewYork sister site InternetNews.com on Friday that the sale of Sabela would monetize an asset the company has yet to integrate into Connect for Networks, the ad serving platform running its media network.

"We currently have two ad serving solutions," Moore said. "We had hoped to combine them someday; however, we don't have the time or the money to do it now. As a result, we're selling Sabela and keeping Connect, the system we built to serve our Web site network."

A spokesperson for 24/7 Media said the sale of Sabela wouldn't necessarily put it out of the third-party ad serving business altogether, but would require modifications to 24/7 Connect for Networks to handle serving on an ASP basis.

But to switch to an outsource-only model is a large change from 24/7's in-house Connect for Advertisers and Publishers product. In addition to DoubleClick, several other ad network offer fully in-house, third-party servers.

Interestingly, 24/7 Media had intended its purchase of Sabela in January 2000 to help it rival to DoubleClick's product line, which offers AdServer and DART (which handles third-party ASP serving and ad serving to its ad network).

24/7 Media plunked down $75 million in stock for the company, but in its 10K filing revealed that it has written off the investment as impairment, at $47.9 million.

On Thursday, the company announced it would trim 100 staffers and close some offices in an effort to save $10 million annually.

In other news, 24/7 Media also revealed in its filing that it is shutting down operations of AwardTrack, a subsidiary that created and managed online promotions. Another $75 million purchase, AwardTrack rolled out the latest update to its customer loyalty product in August. 24/7 said it has written down the value of AwardTrack at $55.5 million.