AOL hasn't been mentioned much in online conversations since the late 1990s, but the company is trying to change that by reaching out to hip, growing, and increasingly moneyed audiences -- and it's found the online Latino demographic a perfect target. The company just closed a licensing deal with multi-channel Latino web video network MiTú.

The deal with MiTú is a non-exclusive, one-year contract, in which AOL and the online Latino video network will share revenues, while AOL will syndicate its content across their platforms in both English and Spanish, according to the media-watching site RealScreen.

MiTú gets a larger audience and new distribution channels out of the agreement, and AOL hopes the video network's Latino hipness will rub off on the somewhat stodgy internet firm. "We see this partnership as an excellent way to supplement our video catalog with high-quality content across a range of topics for our growing Hispanic audience," Frank Besteiro, VP and head of business development & partnerships for AOL Video, said in a statement.

"Everybody wants to be able to speak to these audiences authentically, so they're turning to companies like ours," said MiTú's chief revenue officer. Companies put a "premium on this type of content." MiTú CEO Roy Burstin said in a statement, "We believe that this relationship helps to better serve today's exploding Hispanic audiences who have demonstrated a passionate appetite for MiTu's English and Spanish language, culturally relevant video content."

Since it launched in 2012, MiTú has expanded its network of YouTube channels and original shows, now gaining more than 45 million unique viewers globally and more than 200 million monthly views of its video, according to the latest November 2013 YouTube Analytics cited by MiTú. It has attracted the attention of some high-profile backers, including Peter Chernin's The Chernin Group, Shari Redstone's Advancit Capital, and Allen DeBevoise, best known as the co-founder of the phenomenally successful YouTube video network, Machinima.

The MiTú YouTube network mostly focuses on lifestyle channels, like cooking videos (including the series "Tip Del Chef Oropeza"), DIY Arts and Crafts shows, and Beauty tips. The group more recently launched the sub-channel MiTú Macho, which an English-based pop culture-male parody/variety skit show that has the look of a fully-produced MTV show, called El Show with Chuey Martinez.

Unsurprisingly, AOL's increased focus on a Hispanic audience goes in tandem with the rise of Latinos online and in the U.S. as an economically powerful force. As of 2013, more than three in four Latinos say they use the internet, up 14 percent over just four years, according to Pew. And the demographic groups within the Latino population most likely to be online earn $50,000 a year or more are aged 18 to 29 (at 95 percent and 93 percent respectively). According to another Pew survey, along with Twitter and Facebook's own internal studies, Latinos are the most active group on social media.

Of course AOL does its own studies, which included the proprietary AOL's Mega Audience: Hispanics study conducted by eMarketer in 2013 and only partially released to the public on AOL's advertising blog as "Poised to Purchase: Hispanic Audience Insights."

In it, AOL found that 66 percent of U.S. online Latinos prefer to watch TV shows online. No wonder AOL is suddenly interested in Latino upstarts like MiTú.