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AOL

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AOL is a global advertising-supported Web company, with display advertising network in the U.S., a substantial worldwide audience, and a suite of popular Web brands and products.

The company’s strategy focuses on increasing the scale and sophistication of its advertising platform and growing the size and engagement of its global online audience through leading products and programming.

On March 13, 2008, AOL Internet division announced their plans to buy social network Bebo for $850 million in cash.

History of Aol:

AOL was founded in the early 1980’s as Control Video Corp, with an online service, Gameline, for the Atari 2600 console. In 1985 the company was re- named Quantum Computer Services and was the first online service launched for the Commodore 64 and 128 consoles. In 1988, the company created an Online service for the PC and changed its name to AOL (America Online), becoming over the next decade the premier Online access subscription business, at one point having almost 25MM subscribers.

AOL originally went public in 1992 and grew to become the largest Online access and portal company on the Web. In 2000, AOL acquired Time Warner for $160B+ in what was then considered to be the largest M&A transaction, and the company was re-named AOL Time Warner. Since then, AOL’s access business has deteriorated as more subscribers churned away from its core dial- up service for higher broadband ‘Net services. As we show in the chart below, AOL’s narrowband subscriber penetration of total Internet appears to be asymptotically heading to zero, as more and more people convert to broadband.

Milestones

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• 
  AOL added Sol Lipman as Senior Director of Mobile. (9/7/10)
  Posted 8/31/10 at 12:20pm
• 
  AOL acquired Rally Up. (8/31/10)
  Posted 8/31/10 at 12:19pm via techcrunch.com
• 
  AOL added Graham Moysey as General Manager. (8/25/10)
  Posted 8/25/10 at 3:52pm
• 
  AOL added Bob Buch as VP Business Development. (8/9/10)
  Posted 8/7/10 at 6:38pm
• 
  AOL received $188M in Unattributed funding. (6/17/10)
  Posted 6/17/10 at 6:58pm via techcrunch.com
• 
  AOL — AOL To Sell Bebo For Around $10 Million (6/16/10)
  Posted 6/17/10 at 5:15pm via techcrunch.com
• 
  AOL — AOL Sells Instant Messaging Service ICQ To DST For $187.5 Million (4/28/10)
  Posted 5/4/10 at 9:18pm via techcrunch.com
• 
  AOL added Jeff Lindsay as VP Strategy and Operations. (3/29/10)
  Posted 3/30/10 at 10:58am
• 
  AOL added Mike Maser as Head of Marketing for Consumer Applications. (3/22/10)
  Posted 3/22/10 at 10:21am
• 
  AOL — OUCH: AOL Sold Buy.at For Just $17 Million -- A $108 Million Loss (3/2/10)
  Posted 3/2/10 at 8:51pm via businessinsider.com
• 
  AOL — AOL plans to spend $50m to build hundreds of Patch sites (3/2/10)
  Posted 3/2/10 at 3:27pm via businessinsider.com
• 
  AOL acquired StudioNow for $36.5M. (1/25/10)
  Posted 1/25/10 at 3:46am via techcrunch.com
• 
  AOL added Saul Hansell as Programming Director of Seed.com. (12/8/09)
  Posted 2/2/10 at 7:55am
• 
  AOL — AOL relauches, changes identity to Content-Driven Company (11/23/09)
  Posted 11/23/09 at 3:55pm via aol.com
• 
  AOL added Susan Lyne as Board of Directors. (11/6/09)
  Posted 11/8/09 at 4:48pm
• 
  AOL added Fred Reynolds as Board of Directors. (10/26/09)
  Posted 11/3/09 at 2:34pm

Videos

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Products

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Sources

1. techcrunch.com [edit]
2. AOL Acquires StudioNow For $36.5M, Confirms Departure Of CTO Ted Cahall (techcrunch.com) [edit]
3. AOL Tries M&A Jujitsu, Buys Martial Arts Site MMAFighting (paidcontent.org) [edit]
4. AOL Buys Two Local Startups, Including One Backed By CEO Armstrong (paidcontent.org) [edit]
5. AOL Buys Two Local Startups, Including One Backed By CEO Armstrong (paidcontent.org) [edit]
6. blog.emurse.com [edit]
7. Suddenly, AOL Loves Lifestreaming; Buys Socialthing! (techcrunch.com) [edit]
8. techcrunch.com [edit]
9. techcrunch.com [edit]
10. AOL Buys Bebo For $850 Million (techcrunch.com) [edit]
11. Amid Yahoo Turmoil, AOL Makes An Acquisition (techcrunch.com) [edit]
12. techcrunch.com [edit]
13. AOL Gets Into Q&A Business, Acquires Israel’s Yedda (techcrunch.com) [edit]
14. JMP Securities [edit]
15. AOL Buys Tacoda for $275 Million (alleyinsider.com) [edit]
16. ADTECH (adtech.info) [edit]
17. ClickZ (clickz.com) [edit]
18. AOL Acquires Relegence Corporation (relegence.com) [edit]
19. AOL expands video games with GameDaily acquisition (itwire.com) [edit]
20. techcrunch.com [edit]
21. news.com [edit]
22. Citation Needed [add]
23. AOL Announces Acquisition of MusicNow (corp.aol.com) [edit]
24. TimeWarner (timewarner.com) [edit]
25. AOL acquires skins-maker Wildseed (telephonyonline.com) [edit]
26. America Online, Inc. Announces Acquisition of Mailblocks, Inc. (timewarner.com) [edit]
27. America Online, Inc. Announces Acquisition of Xdrive, Inc. (timewarner.com) [edit]
28. Citation Needed [add]
29. AOL acquires multimedia search provider (news.zdnet.com) [edit]
30. Citation Needed [add]
31. COMPANY NEWS; AOL TIME WARNER AGREES TO ACQUIRE INFOINTERACTIVE (query.nytimes.com) [edit]
32. AOL Acquires iAmaze (internetnews.com) [edit]
33. AOL buys MapQuest in Billion Dollar Deal (ecommercetimes.com) [edit]
34. AOL buys Spinner, Nullsoft for $400 million (news.cnet.com) [edit]
35. AOL buys Spinner, Nullsoft for $400 million (news.cnet.com) [edit]
36. Short Take: AOL acquires MovieFone (news.cnet.com) [edit]
37. AOL buys Netscape for $4.2 billion (news.cnet.com) [edit]
38. AOL Buys Israel's Mirabilis (internetnews.com) [edit]
39. paidcontent.org [edit]
40. techcrunch.com [edit]
41. wp.kayak.com [edit]
42. wp.kayak.com [edit]
43. AOL (aol.com) [edit]
44. findarticles.com [edit]
45. en.wikipedia.org [edit]
46. Time Warner's AOL and Google to Expand Strategic Alliance (google.com) [edit]
47. Confirmed: Criterion Capital Partners Acquires Bebo From AOL (techcrunch.com) [edit]
48. AOL Previews New Brand Identity for its Future as an Independent Content-Driven Company (corp.aol.com) [edit]
49. businessinsider.com [edit]
50. OUCH: AOL Sold Buy.at For Just $17 Million -- A $108 Million Loss (businessinsider.com) [edit]
51. AOL Sells Instant Messaging Service ICQ To DST For $187.5 Million (techcrunch.com) [edit]
52. AOL To Sell Bebo For Around $10 Million (techcrunch.com) [edit]