AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL, stylized as "Aol.", and previously known as America Online) is an American global Internet services and media company.[3][4] AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York.[5][6] Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services.[7]
AOL is best known for its online software suite, also called AOL, that allowed customers to access the world's largest "walled garden" online community and eventually reach out to the Internet as a whole. At its prime, AOL's membership was over 30 million members worldwide,[8] most of whom accessed the AOL service through the AOL software suite.
On May 28, 2009, Time Warner announced that it would spin off AOL into a separate public company. The spinoff occurred on December 9, 2009,[9] ending the eight year relationship between the two companies.
AOL Inc. (AOL) is a global Web services company with a suite of brands and offerings. The Company’s business spans online content, products and services that it offers to consumers, publishers and advertisers. The Company is focused on attracting and engaging consumers and providing online advertising services on both its owned and operated properties, and third-party Websites. The Company markets its advertising offerings on both AOL Media and the Third Party Network under the brand AOL Advertising. The Company markets its offerings to publishers on the Third Party Network under the brand Advertising.com. On July 8, 2009, Time Warner Inc. (Time Warner) completed the purchase of Google Inc.’s (Google) 5% interest in the Company. Pursuant to the purchase, AOL Holdings LLC became a wholly owned subsidiary of Time Warner. On November 2, 2009, Time Warner converted AOL Holdings LLC into AOL Inc. Prior to the spin-off, Time Warner transferred AOL LLC, then the Company’s wholly owned subsidiary that held, directly or indirectly, all of the AOL business, to be transferred to and assumed by AOL. Pursuant to the spin-off, the Company and Time Warner operate independently, and neither has any ownership interest in the other. In January 2010, the Company acquired StudioNow Inc., an online platform for video creation and distribution. In June 2010, Criterion Capital Partners, LLC acquired the Bebo business from AOL Inc. In June 2010, the Company sold DMS Insights,also known as Digital Marketing Services, Inc., to uSamp. In September 2010, the Company acquired Thing Labs, Inc. In December 2010, the Company acquired Pictela, Inc. In March 2011, the Company acquired The Huffington Post.
The Company’s business operations are focused on AOL Properties and Third Party Network. AOL Properties include the Company’s owned and operated content, products and services in the content, local, paid services and consumer applications areas in addition to its AOL Ventures offerings. The Company generates advertising revenues from its owned and operated content, products and services through the sale of display advertising and search and contextual advertising. It also generates revenues through its subscription access service. In addition, it generates revenues from subscriptions to other products and services. The Company also generates advertising revenues through the sale of advertising on third-party Websites and on digital devices, collectively referred to as the Third Party Network.
AOL Properties
AOL Media offerings include original content produced through the Company’s network of content creators, which includes journalists and other writers, content it licenses from third parties and aggregations of user-generated content. The Company’s content offerings are made available to audiences through sites, such as the AOL.com homepage, as well as to audiences on branded properties, such as Asylum, Engadget and WalletPop. AOL Media offerings include news and information (including Engadget, DailyFinance, AOL News, WalletPop, FanHouse and PoliticsDaily); women and lifestyle (including StyleList, Lemondrop, PawNation and ParentDish); entertainment (including Moviefone, AOL Music, AOL Television and PopEater), and marketplace solutions (including AOL Autos, AOL Shopping, Tripvine and RentedSpaces).
The Company has developed and acquired a number of platforms that are designed to facilitate the aggregation, distribution and consumption of local content. This local content includes professional editorial content, user-generated content and business listings. Its local offerings include Patch, which is a community specific news and information platform dedicated to providing comprehensive local coverage for individual towns and communities; MapQuest, which is an online mapping and directions service; Local Entertainment Guides (including City’s Best), and Local Directories (including AOL Yellow Pages).
AOL’s consumer applications offerings include AOL Mail, which is an e-mail service in the United States; AIM, which is an instant messaging service in the United States; ICQ; a suite of mobile offerings, which extends the Company’s content, products and services to a range of digital devices; a variety of toolbars (browser plug-ins); Lifestream, which facilitates the consumers to aggregate updates from different social networks to which they belong, and ICQ, which is an instant messaging service. The Company offers AOL Search on AOL Properties. It provides consumers with a general, Internet-based search experience that utilizes Google Inc.’s organic Web search results and additional links on the search results page that showcase contextually relevant AOL and third-party content and information (adjacent to the search results), as well as provide a variety of search-related features (such as suggesting related searches to help users further refine their search queries). AOL also provides consumers with paid text-based search advertising through its relationship with Google Inc., in which it provides consumers search-based, sponsored link ads in response to their search queries. In addition, the Company offers its own video (Truveo) and news (Relegence) search services. AOL offers contextually relevant advertising generated based on the content of the AOL Properties Webpage the consumer is viewing.
Third Party Network
AOL generates advertising revenues through the sale of advertising on the Third Party Network. In order to connect advertisers with online advertising inventory, the Company purchases advertising inventory from publishers, and utilizes optimization, targeting and delivery technology to match advertisers with available advertising inventory. The Company also offers search engine campaign management and lead generation affiliate products. The Third Party Network includes a display advertising interface that gives advertisers the ability to target and control the delivery of their advertisements and provides advertisers and agencies with display analytics and measurement tools. It utilizes a scheduling, optimization and delivery technology, called AdLearn, which employs a set of mathematical algorithms.
Other Revenues
AOL generates fee, license and other revenues. From its communications offerings, the Company generates fees associated with mobile e-mail and instant messaging functionality from mobile carriers. Through MapQuest’s business-to-business services, the Company generates licensing revenue from third-party customers. It also generates revenues by licensing ad serving technology to third parties, primarily through its subsidiary, ADTECH AG.
The Company competes with Yahoo! Inc., Google Inc., Microsoft Corporation, IAC/Interactive Corp., Facebook, Inc., News Corporation (MySpace unit), WPP plc (24/7 Real Media) and ValueClick, Inc.
OVERALL
Beta: 0.85
Market Cap (Mil.): $2,213.30
Shares Outstanding (Mil.): 106.92
Annual Dividend: --
Yield (%): --
FINANCIALS
AOL Industry Sector
P/E (TTM): -- 19.43 18.54
EPS (TTM): -412.16 -- --
ROI: -28.17 20.65 15.41
ROE: -29.57 22.40 16.87
Name Age Since Current Position
Armstrong, Timothy 40 2009 Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer
Minson, Arthur 40 2010 Chief Financial Officer and Administrative Officer, Executive Vice President
Gounares, Alexander 38 2010 Chief Technology Officer, Executive Vice President
Jacobs, Julie 44 2010 Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary
Lyne, Susan 60 2009 Independent Director
Mitchell, Patricia 68 2009 Independent Director
Powell, Michael 48 2009 Independent Director
Reynolds, Fredric 60 2009 Independent Director
Stengel, James 55 2009 Independent Director
Dalzell, Richard 53 2009 Independent Director
Dykstra, Karen 52 2009 Independent Director
Ibarguen, Alberto 67 2011 Independent Director
COMPANY ADDRESS
AOL Inc
770 Broadway
New York NY 10003
AOL is best known for its online software suite, also called AOL, that allowed customers to access the world's largest "walled garden" online community and eventually reach out to the Internet as a whole. At its prime, AOL's membership was over 30 million members worldwide,[8] most of whom accessed the AOL service through the AOL software suite.
On May 28, 2009, Time Warner announced that it would spin off AOL into a separate public company. The spinoff occurred on December 9, 2009,[9] ending the eight year relationship between the two companies.
AOL Inc. (AOL) is a global Web services company with a suite of brands and offerings. The Company’s business spans online content, products and services that it offers to consumers, publishers and advertisers. The Company is focused on attracting and engaging consumers and providing online advertising services on both its owned and operated properties, and third-party Websites. The Company markets its advertising offerings on both AOL Media and the Third Party Network under the brand AOL Advertising. The Company markets its offerings to publishers on the Third Party Network under the brand Advertising.com. On July 8, 2009, Time Warner Inc. (Time Warner) completed the purchase of Google Inc.’s (Google) 5% interest in the Company. Pursuant to the purchase, AOL Holdings LLC became a wholly owned subsidiary of Time Warner. On November 2, 2009, Time Warner converted AOL Holdings LLC into AOL Inc. Prior to the spin-off, Time Warner transferred AOL LLC, then the Company’s wholly owned subsidiary that held, directly or indirectly, all of the AOL business, to be transferred to and assumed by AOL. Pursuant to the spin-off, the Company and Time Warner operate independently, and neither has any ownership interest in the other. In January 2010, the Company acquired StudioNow Inc., an online platform for video creation and distribution. In June 2010, Criterion Capital Partners, LLC acquired the Bebo business from AOL Inc. In June 2010, the Company sold DMS Insights,also known as Digital Marketing Services, Inc., to uSamp. In September 2010, the Company acquired Thing Labs, Inc. In December 2010, the Company acquired Pictela, Inc. In March 2011, the Company acquired The Huffington Post.
The Company’s business operations are focused on AOL Properties and Third Party Network. AOL Properties include the Company’s owned and operated content, products and services in the content, local, paid services and consumer applications areas in addition to its AOL Ventures offerings. The Company generates advertising revenues from its owned and operated content, products and services through the sale of display advertising and search and contextual advertising. It also generates revenues through its subscription access service. In addition, it generates revenues from subscriptions to other products and services. The Company also generates advertising revenues through the sale of advertising on third-party Websites and on digital devices, collectively referred to as the Third Party Network.
AOL Properties
AOL Media offerings include original content produced through the Company’s network of content creators, which includes journalists and other writers, content it licenses from third parties and aggregations of user-generated content. The Company’s content offerings are made available to audiences through sites, such as the AOL.com homepage, as well as to audiences on branded properties, such as Asylum, Engadget and WalletPop. AOL Media offerings include news and information (including Engadget, DailyFinance, AOL News, WalletPop, FanHouse and PoliticsDaily); women and lifestyle (including StyleList, Lemondrop, PawNation and ParentDish); entertainment (including Moviefone, AOL Music, AOL Television and PopEater), and marketplace solutions (including AOL Autos, AOL Shopping, Tripvine and RentedSpaces).
The Company has developed and acquired a number of platforms that are designed to facilitate the aggregation, distribution and consumption of local content. This local content includes professional editorial content, user-generated content and business listings. Its local offerings include Patch, which is a community specific news and information platform dedicated to providing comprehensive local coverage for individual towns and communities; MapQuest, which is an online mapping and directions service; Local Entertainment Guides (including City’s Best), and Local Directories (including AOL Yellow Pages).
AOL’s consumer applications offerings include AOL Mail, which is an e-mail service in the United States; AIM, which is an instant messaging service in the United States; ICQ; a suite of mobile offerings, which extends the Company’s content, products and services to a range of digital devices; a variety of toolbars (browser plug-ins); Lifestream, which facilitates the consumers to aggregate updates from different social networks to which they belong, and ICQ, which is an instant messaging service. The Company offers AOL Search on AOL Properties. It provides consumers with a general, Internet-based search experience that utilizes Google Inc.’s organic Web search results and additional links on the search results page that showcase contextually relevant AOL and third-party content and information (adjacent to the search results), as well as provide a variety of search-related features (such as suggesting related searches to help users further refine their search queries). AOL also provides consumers with paid text-based search advertising through its relationship with Google Inc., in which it provides consumers search-based, sponsored link ads in response to their search queries. In addition, the Company offers its own video (Truveo) and news (Relegence) search services. AOL offers contextually relevant advertising generated based on the content of the AOL Properties Webpage the consumer is viewing.
Third Party Network
AOL generates advertising revenues through the sale of advertising on the Third Party Network. In order to connect advertisers with online advertising inventory, the Company purchases advertising inventory from publishers, and utilizes optimization, targeting and delivery technology to match advertisers with available advertising inventory. The Company also offers search engine campaign management and lead generation affiliate products. The Third Party Network includes a display advertising interface that gives advertisers the ability to target and control the delivery of their advertisements and provides advertisers and agencies with display analytics and measurement tools. It utilizes a scheduling, optimization and delivery technology, called AdLearn, which employs a set of mathematical algorithms.
Other Revenues
AOL generates fee, license and other revenues. From its communications offerings, the Company generates fees associated with mobile e-mail and instant messaging functionality from mobile carriers. Through MapQuest’s business-to-business services, the Company generates licensing revenue from third-party customers. It also generates revenues by licensing ad serving technology to third parties, primarily through its subsidiary, ADTECH AG.
The Company competes with Yahoo! Inc., Google Inc., Microsoft Corporation, IAC/Interactive Corp., Facebook, Inc., News Corporation (MySpace unit), WPP plc (24/7 Real Media) and ValueClick, Inc.
OVERALL
Beta: 0.85
Market Cap (Mil.): $2,213.30
Shares Outstanding (Mil.): 106.92
Annual Dividend: --
Yield (%): --
FINANCIALS
AOL Industry Sector
P/E (TTM): -- 19.43 18.54
EPS (TTM): -412.16 -- --
ROI: -28.17 20.65 15.41
ROE: -29.57 22.40 16.87
Name Age Since Current Position
Armstrong, Timothy 40 2009 Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer
Minson, Arthur 40 2010 Chief Financial Officer and Administrative Officer, Executive Vice President
Gounares, Alexander 38 2010 Chief Technology Officer, Executive Vice President
Jacobs, Julie 44 2010 Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary
Lyne, Susan 60 2009 Independent Director
Mitchell, Patricia 68 2009 Independent Director
Powell, Michael 48 2009 Independent Director
Reynolds, Fredric 60 2009 Independent Director
Stengel, James 55 2009 Independent Director
Dalzell, Richard 53 2009 Independent Director
Dykstra, Karen 52 2009 Independent Director
Ibarguen, Alberto 67 2011 Independent Director
COMPANY ADDRESS
AOL Inc
770 Broadway
New York NY 10003