AOL

(A division of Time Warner, Inc., New York, NY, www.aol.com) The world's largest online information service with access to the Internet, e-mail, chat rooms and a variety of databases and services. When dial-up was king, AOL had more than 30 million subscribers worldwide, but the number declined significantly after the turn of the century as broadband cable and DSL took hold.

Free in 2006
In August 2006, in addition to its paid dial-up service, AOL introduced free plans for broadband users as well as people who use another ISP for dial-up. Advertiser supported, the free service includes the AOL browser, e-mail with a custom domain name, instant messaging, online storage, access to AOL videos, photo and video sharing and more than 200 Internet radio channels. A paid, premium service is also available that includes ID theft and PC insurance.

AOL History
AOL was founded in 1985 as Quantum Computer Services, which offered online service to users with Commodore computers. In 1989, service was extended to the Mac and Apple II, and then to DOS users in 1991, when it changed its name to America Online. In 1995, AOL acquired ANS, a network services provider, and two years later sold ANS to WorldCom in exchange for CompuServe's customer base, which WorldCom had recently acquired.

In 1999, AOL acquired Netscape and created an alliance with Sun to sell Netscape's Web products. Ironically, AOL's Web browser had actually been Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser and Netscape's primary competition.

In the first days of 2001, AOL merged with Time Warner to become the largest online information and entertainment conglomerate in the world. For awhile, the name of the company was AOL Time Warner. See You've Got Mail, AIM, online service and ANS.

Major Marketing

Perhaps the largest CD-ROM marketing campaign ever, AOL distributed millions of introductory offers to every venue imaginable after the Internet went commercial in the mid-1990s. New members signed up in record numbers. CD-ROMs were distributed with PCs, with software, virtually anything. They even wound up in dry-ice-frozen packages of filet mignons.

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AOL - America On-Line