Posted on 12/10/2009 1:45:17 PM PST by Responsibility2nd
NEW YORK – AOL resumed life as an independent Internet company Thursday as it completed its spinoff from Time Warner Inc. and closed the book on one of the most disastrous business combinations in history.
AOL shares fell 47 cents, or 2 percent, to $23.20 in afternoon trading.
Today's AOL is much different from the company once known as America Online, which got big in the 1990s by selling dial-up Internet access and then used $147 billion of its inflated stock to buy Time Warner. AOL, which is now worth about $2 billion, is trying to get most of its money from running advertisements on its portfolio of Web sites.
Those sites include the AOL.com home pages, Mapquest and tech blog Engadget. AOL isn't keeping the entertainment site TMZ, which is staying in Time Warner.
When AOL bought Time Warner in 2001, the companies bet that Time Warner's TV and magazine content would complement AOL's Internet business. Instead, broadband Internet connections began to kill off AOL's main source of revenue and drag down the whole company.
The company was once known as AOL Time Warner but dropped AOL from the name in 2003. That was a sign of what was to come: Time Warner announced AOL's spinoff last May after years of trying to integrate the two companies.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I hope they continue to fail. Good riddance!
Now if Warner spun of the awful Time they might have something there.
I have a collection of 200+ America on Line promotional floppies and CD’s most still in the celophane wrappers and mint condition.
When AOL finally fails in 2010 I’ll be rich!! People will flock to my Ebay store
anyone remember the millions of free aol cds flooding everyone’s mail boxes
A lot of skeet shooters do...
ABSOLUTELY. I’m with you on that. Never was treated in my entire life as rudely as I was by those people. It was my first online experience, and AOL did their best to make it the worst experience they could.
I told them when I signed off that I would never do business with them again, and the anus orifice on the phone made with a really nasty snicker, and told me “You’ll be back”. I made certain I didn’t go back. That was 1999.
I have in excess of two hundred in mint condition
Just sitting there, waiting for AOL to bankrupt
Frankly I’m surprised to hear there still is an AOL. What do they do?
Might be worth more if turned into some sort of modern sculpture.
AOL regaining Independence from Time Warner...????
AOL purchased Time Warner
Today's AOL is much different from the company once known as America Online, which got big in the 1990s by selling dial-up Internet access and then used $147 billion of its inflated stock to buy Time Warner.
So... how does AOL "regain independance" when AOL was the one who bought Time-Warner?
Same as they ever did. Overcharge the clueless for crappy internet access and interface.
You raise good questions.
Not sure if this helps.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner
In 2000, a new company called AOL Time Warner, with Steve Case as chairman, was created when AOL purchased Time Warner for US$164 billion.[11] The deal, announced on 10 January 2000[12] and officially filed on 11 February 2000,[13] employed a merger structure in which each original company merged into a newly created entity. The Federal Trade Commission cleared the deal on December 14, 2000,[14] and gave final approval on January 11, 2001;[citation needed] the company completed the merger later that day.[15] The deal was approved on the same day by the Federal Communications Commission,[13] and had already been cleared by the European Commission on 11 October 2000.[16] The shareholders of AOL owned 55% of the new company while Time Warner shareholders owned only 45%,[12] thus the smaller AOL bought out the far larger Time Warner.
After the merger, the profitability of the ISP division (America Online) decreased.[citation needed] Meanwhile, the market valuation of similar independent internet companies drastically fell. As a result, the value of the America Online division dropped significantly. This forced a goodwill write-off, causing AOL Time Warner to report a loss of $99 billion in 2002 — at the time, the largest loss ever reported by a company. In 2003, the company dropped the “AOL” from its name, and removed Steve Case as executive chairman in favor of Richard Parsons, with AOL remaining a part of the company. That same year, Time Warner spun off Time-Life’s ownership
It wasn't disastrous for anyone who had AOL stock and sold it in within a reasonable time frame.
ROFL!
14 splits...for me.
Remember “Community”?
Steve Case was like a conservative in Hollywood....never had a chance, especially after he tried to sell TW’s private jet fleet and make the communists fly commercial.
“I have a collection of 200+ America on Line promotional floppies and CD’s most still in the celophane wrappers and mint condition.”
The CD’s made fine targets and the price was right.
AOL provided me with about 3 years of Internet service from around 2000 to 2003, which was an answered prayer for this faith ministry. I would get it for about 3 months, and call up to cancel, and honestly so, as i could not afford or at least justify the expense, and they would give me another 3 months, and which I used extensively, and so it contd. Finally i began using a freedialup.org, which you can still use (in most of NE), no strings attached. But I finally was able to go to Verizon DSL for 20 a months.
How i ever endured dial up! I used a cable modem, and a device to enable picking up incoming phone calls, and seeing the caller ID, but going about 95 mph versus 5 is a lot faster. Praise the Lord.
It did it’s intended purpose. Pushed Obama hype. Now they can be let go.
Well, I guess I am the only former dial up AOL member who was not so dissatisfied. When I joined in ‘99 I was new to the internet and even some techies I knew were still using AOL.
Over time my monthly fee was reduced to practically nothing and I NEVER, ONCE encountered rude customer service reps if I had any problem at all with my account, whether those reps were in the US or overseas. They always talked me thru any issues and I was back in business at once.
I’ve had more problems with DSL/wireless connectivity in a brief time than I ever had with AOL over the years.
If I still had dial-up (some areas actually MUST use dial up to this day) even in Southern California — I would not be unhappy to use AOL. I never really minded not being able to get phone calls when I was on-line. The phone is a major annoyance to me so having people get busy signals was fine. Let them call back.
Flame away, but I liked AOL and still use its free e-mail as everyone is so used to my screen name after all these years. In fact, I have many friends who are doing the same. I realize I am in the minority in wishing AOL well. So be it.
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