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AOL LLC

File:AOL logo.png
Company type	Subsidiary of Time Warner
Industry	Internet & Communications
Founded	1983 (as CVC)
Headquarters	Dulles, Virginia, USA
Key people	Randy Falco, Ted Leonsis, Ronald Grant
Products	Internet service
Revenue	$417M USD (FY 2006)
Net income	$479M USD (FY 2006)
Number of employees	16,000
Website	www.aol.com www.corp.aol.com

AOL LLC (formerly America Online, Inc) is an American online service provider, bulletin board system, and media company operated by Time Warner.

AOL is based in the city of Dulles in Loudoun County, Virginia. With regional branches around the world, the former American "goliath among Internet service providers" once had more than 30 million subscribers on several continents. In January 2000, AOL and Time Warner announced plans to merge. The terms of the deal negotiated called for AOL shareholders to own 55% of the new, combined company. The deal closed on January 11, 2001 after receiving regulatory approval from the FTC, the Federal Communications Commission and the European Union.

AOL Time Warner, as the company was then called, was led by executives from both AOL and Time Warner. Gerald Levin, who had served as CEO of Time Warner, was CEO of the new company. Steve Case served as Chairman, J. Michael Kelly (from AOL) was the Chief Financial Officer, Robert W. Pittman (from AOL) and Dick Parsons (from Time Warner) served as Co-Chief Operating Officers. The total value of AOL stock subsequently plummeted from about $226 billion to about $20 billion.

AOL is a company in transition, made evident by discussions of buy-outs and joint ventures during a period of dramatic decline in AOL's subscriber base. News reports in fall 2005 identified companies such as Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Google as candidates for turning AOL into a joint venture; those plans were apparently abandoned when it was revealed on December 20, 2005 that Google would purchase a 5% share of AOL for $1 billion.

AOL UK was bought by The Carphone Warehouse in October 2006 to take advantage of their 100,000 LLU's, which makes The Carphone Warehouse the biggest LLU provider in the UK, enabling them to offer broadband at no charge to 90% of their Talk3 customers

History

Beginnings

AOL began as a short-lived venture called Quantum Computer Services (or QCS), founded by William von Meister. Its sole product was an online service called Gameline for the Atari 2600 video game console after von Meister's idea of buying music on demand was rejected by Warner Brothers. (Klein, 2003) Subscribers bought a modem from the company for $49.95 and paid a one-time $15 setup fee. Gameline permitted subscribers to temporarily download games and keep track of high scores, at a cost of approximately $1 per hour.

In 1983, the company nearly went bankrupt, and an investor in Control Video, Frank Caufield, had a friend of his, Jim Kimsey, brought in as a manufacturing consultant. That same year, Steve Case joined the company as a full-time marketing employee upon the joint recommendations of von Meister and Kimsey. Kimsey went on to become the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the newly renamed Quantum Computer Services in 1985, after von Meister was quietly dropped from the company.

Case himself rose quickly through the ranks; Kimsey promoted him to vice-president of marketing not long after becoming CEO, and later promoted him further to executive vice-president in 1987. Kimsey soon began to groom Case to ascend to the rank of CEO, which he did when Kimsey retired in 1991.

Kimsey changed the company's strategy, and in 1985 launched a sort of mega-BBS for Commodore 64 and 128 computers, originally called Quantum Link ("Q-Link" for short). The Quantum Link software was licensed from PlayNet, Inc. In May 1988, Quantum and Apple launched AppleLink Personal Edition for Apple II and Macintosh computers. After the two companies parted ways in October 1989, Quantum changed the service's name to America Online. In August 1988, Quantum launched PC Link, a service for IBM-compatible PCs developed in a joint venture with the Tandy Corporation.

From the beginning, AOL included online games in its mix of products; many classic and casual games were included in the original PlayNet software system. In the early years of AOL the company introduced many additional innovative online interactive titles and games, including:

• Graphical chat environments Habitat (1986-1988) and Club Caribe (1988) from LucasArts,
• The first online interactive fiction series QuantumLink Serial by Tracy Reed (1988),
• Quantum Space, the first fully automated Play by email game (1989-1991),
• The original Dungeons & Dragons title Neverwinter Nights from Stormfront Studios (1991-1997), the first Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) to depict the adventure with graphics instead of text (1991) and
• The first chat room-based text role-playing game Black Bayou (1996-2004), a horror role-playing game from Hecklers Online and ANTAGONIST, Inc.

In February 1991 AOL for DOS was launched using a GeoWorks interface followed a year later by AOL for Windows. In October 1991, Quantum changed its name to America Online. These changes coincided with growth in pay-based BBS services, like Prodigy, CompuServe, and GEnie. AOL discontinued Q-Link and PC Link in the fall of 1994.

Massive growth

Case positioned AOL as the online service for people unfamiliar with computers, in particular contrast to CompuServe, which had long served the technical community. The PlayNet system that AOL licensed was the first online service to require use of proprietary software, rather than a standard terminal program; as a result it was able to offer a graphical user interface (GUI) instead of command lines, and was well ahead of the competition in emphasizing communication among members as a feature.

In particular was the Chat Room concept from PlayNet, as opposed to the previous paradigm of CB-style channels. Chat Rooms allowed a large group of people with similar interests to convene and hold conversations in real time, including:

• Private rooms — created by any user. Hold up to 27 people.
• Conference rooms — created with permission of AOL. Hold up to 48 people and often moderated.
• Auditoriums — created with permission of AOL. Consisted of a stage and an unlimited number of rows. What happened on the stage was viewable by everybody in the auditorium but what happened within individual rows, of up to 27 people, was viewable only by the people within those rows.

There were also text games played in the chat rooms, known as AOL chatroom games.

In March 1994, AOL added access to USENET to the features it offered.

AOL quickly surpassed GEnie, and by the mid-1990s, it passed Prodigy (which for several years allowed AOL advertising) and CompuServe.

Originally, AOL charged its users an hourly fee, but in 1996 this changed and a flat rate of $19.99 a month was charged. Within three years, AOL's userbase grew to 10 million people. During this time, AOL connections would be flooded with users trying to get on, and many canceled their accounts due to constant busy signals. Also, games which used to be paid for with the hourly fee migrated in droves to the Internet.

AOL was quickly running out of room in 1996 for its network at the Vienna, VA campus and moved to Dulles, VA a short distance away. The move to the Dulles took place in 1997 and provided room for future growth.

AOL was relatively late in providing access to the open Internet. Originally, only some Internet features were accessible through a proprietary interface but eventually it became possible to run other Internet software while logged in through AOL. They were the first online service to seamlessly integrate a web browser into content.

AOL introduced the concept of Buddy Lists, leveraging their one-on-one instant messaging technology.

Change in focus

Since its merger with Time Warner, the value of AOL has dropped from its $200 billion high and it has seen similar losses among its subscription rate. It has since attempted to reposition itself as a content provider similar to companies such as Yahoo! as opposed to an Internet service provider which delivered content only to subscribers in what was termed a "walled garden". In 2005, AOL broadcasted the Live 8 concert live over the Internet, and thousands of users downloaded clips of the concert over the following months.

AOL eventually announced plans to offer subscribers classic television programs for free with commercials inserted via its new IN2TV service. At the time of launch, AOL made available Warner Bros. Television's vast library of programs, with Welcome Back Kotter as its marquee offering. Other shows include Scarecrow and Mrs. King, The F.B.I., F Troop, and Growing Pains.

In 2006, AOL informed its American customers that it would be increasing the price of its dial-up access to $25.90. The increase was part of an effort to migrate the service's remaining dial-up users to broadband, as the increased price was the same price they had been charging for monthly DSL access. However, AOL has started offering their services for $9.95 a month for unlimited dial-up access.

On April 3, 2006, AOL announced that the full name "America Online" will be retired, and that the official name of the service is now "AOL".

On August 2, 2006, AOL announced that they will give away e-mail accounts and software previously available only to its paying customers in a strategy shift likely to accelerate the decline in its core Internet access business. The decision removes the few remaining reasons for many AOL subscribers to keep paying when they already have high-speed Internet access through a cable or phone company. AOL hopes that by making services free, it can draw Internet users to its ad-supported Web sites and keep them from defecting to Microsoft and Yahoo!, which have offered free e-mail for years.

Controversies

Being named #1 in PC World's list of the 25 worst tech products of all time, AOL has been involved in many controversies.

Community Leaders

Prior to mid 2005, AOL used volunteers called Community Leaders, or CLs, to monitor chatrooms, message boards, and libraries. Some community leaders were recruited for content design and maintenance using a proprietary language and interface called RAINMAN, although most content maintenance was performed by partner and internal employees.

In 1999, Kelly Hallissey and Brian Williams, former Community Leaders and founders of an anti-AOL website, filed a class action lawsuit against AOL citing violations of U.S. labor laws in its usage of CLs. The Department of Labor investigated but came to no conclusions, closing their investigation in 2001. In light of these events, AOL began drastically reducing the responsibilities and privileges of its volunteers in 2000. The program was eventually ended on June 8, 2005. Current Community Leaders at the time were offered 12 months of credit on their accounts.

Billing disputes

AOL has faced a number of lawsuits over claims that it has been slow to stop billing people after their accounts have been cancelled, either by the company or the user. In addition, AOL changed its method of calculating used minutes in response to a class action lawsuit. Previously, AOL would add fifteen seconds to the time a user was connected to the service and round up to the next whole minute (thus, a person who used the service for 11 minutes and 46 seconds would be charged for 13 minutes). AOL claimed this was to account for sign on/sign off time, but because this practice was not made known to its customers, the plaintiffs won (some also pointed out that signing on and off did not always take 15 seconds, especially when connecting via another ISP). AOL disclosed its connection time calculation methods to all of its customers and credited them with extra free hours. In addition, the AOL software would notify the user of exactly how long they were connected and how many minutes they were being charged.

Account cancellation

In response to approximately 300 consumer complaints, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s office began an inquiry of AOL’s customer service policies. The investigation revealed that the company had an elaborate scheme for rewarding employees who purported to retain or "save" subscribers who had called to cancel their Internet service. In many instances, such retention was done against subscribers’ wishes, or without their consent. Under the scheme, consumer service personnel received bonuses worth tens of thousands of dollars if they could successfully dissuade or "save" half of the people who called to cancel service. For several years, AOL had instituted minimum retention or "save" percentages, which consumer representatives were expected to meet. These bonuses, and the minimum "save" rates accompanying them, had the effect of employees not honoring cancellations, or otherwise making cancellation unduly difficult for consumers.

Many consumers complained that AOL personnel ignored their demands to cancel service and stop billing. On August 24 2005, America Online agreed to pay $1.25 million to the state of New York and reformed its customer service procedures. Under the agreement, AOL will no longer require its customer service representatives to meet a minimum quota for customer retention in order to receive a bonus. However, many AOL users outside New York still claim to have problems canceling their accounts.

On June 13, 2006, a man named Vincent Ferrari documented his account cancellation phone call in a blog post, stating he had switched to broadband years earlier. In the recorded phone call, the AOL representative refused to cancel the account unless the 30-year-old Ferrari explained why AOL hours were still being recorded on it. Ferrari insisted that AOL software was not even installed on the computer. When Ferrari demanded that the account be canceled regardless, the AOL representative asked to speak with Ferrari's father, for whom the account had been set up. The conversation was aired on CNBC. When CNBC reporters tried to have an account on AOL cancelled, they were hung up on immediately and it ultimately took more than 45 minutes to cancel the account. AOL eventually fired the representative who had spoken to Ferrari and issued an apology.

On July 19, 2006, AOL's entire retention manual was released on the Internet. (7MB PDF)

On August 3, 2006, Time Warner announced that the company would be dissolving AOL's retention centers due to its profits hingeing on $1 billion in cost cuts. The company estimates that it will lose more than six million subscribers over the next year.

Software

In 2000, AOL was served with an $8 billion lawsuit alleging that its (now dated) AOL 5.0 software caused significant difficulties for users attempting to use third-party Internet service providers. The lawsuit sought damages of up to $1000 for each user that had downloaded the software cited at the time of the lawsuit. AOL later agreed to a settlement of $15 million, without admission of wrongdoing. Now, the AOL software has a feature called AOL Dialer, or AOL Connect on Mac OS X. This feature allows users to connect to the ISP without running the full interface. This allows users to use only the applications they wish to use, especially if they do not favor the AOL Browser.

Usenet newsgroups

When AOL gave clients access to Usenet in 1994, they hid at least one newsgroup in standard list view: alt.aol-sucks. AOL did list the newsgroup in the alternative description view, but changed the description to "Flames and complaints about America Online". With AOL clients swarming Usenet newsgroups, the old, existing user base started to develop a strong distaste for both AOL and its clients. The AOL clients got renowned for their one- or two-worded replies, such as "me too", contributing absolutely nothing to the overall discussions. Thus, whenever someone today writes "AOL" in a post, they usually mean "I agree" or some intentionally stupid comment with reference to the early days of AOL clients' access to Usenet. This is frequently written in pseudo-html as "<AOL>intentionally stupid comment</AOL>"

Terms of Service (TOS)

There have been many complaints over rules that govern AOL's members conduct, called the Terms of Service, which apply to everyone who uses AOL, regardless of age, or where an AOL member is on the Internet. Claims are that these rules are too strict to follow and do not allow swearing. TOS is known as COS (conditions of service) in the UK.

Certified e-mail

In early 2005, AOL stated its intention to implement certified e-mail, which will allow companies to send email to users with whom they have pre-existing business relationships, with a visual indication that the email is from a trusted source and without the risk that the email messages might be blocked or stripped by spam filters. This decision has drawn fire from MoveOn, which characterizes the program as an "e-mail tax". Esther Dyson defended the move in a New York Times editorial saying "I hope Goodmail succeeds, and that it has lots of competition. I also think it and its competitors will eventually transform into services that more directly serve the interests of mail recipients. Instead of the fees going to Goodmail and EON, they will also be shared with the individual recipients."

Censorship in mainland China

AOL, along with Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Cisco, Skype, and others, has cooperated with the Chinese government in implementing a system of Internet censorship in mainland China.

Many critics of these corporate policies argue that it is wrong for companies to profit from censorship and restrictions on freedom of the press and freedom of speech.

Human rights advocates such as Human Rights Watch and media groups such as Reporters Without Borders point out that if companies would stop contributing to the authorities' censorship efforts the government could be forced to change.

Search data release

On August 4 2006, AOL released a compressed text file on one of its websites containing twenty million search keywords for over 650,000 users over a 3-month period between March 1, 2006 and May 31, intended for research purposes. AOL pulled the file from public access by August 7, but not before its wide distribution on the Internet by others. Derivative research, titled "A Picture of Search" was published by authors Pass, Chowdhury and Torgeson for The First International Conference on Scalable Information Systems.

This data is being used by Web sites such as AOLstalker for entertainment purposes, where users of AOLstalker are encouraged to judge AOL clients based on the humorousness of personal details revealed by search behavior.

Company purchases

As it grew, AOL purchased many other software companies, including:

• Redgate Communications, in August, 1994, through which Ted Leonsis joined AOL.
• BookLink bought on December 29 1994.
• NaviSoft's NaviServer (later to become AOLserver) on November 30 1994.
• Medior in May, 1995, through which Barry Schuler joined the company.
• Ubique maker of Virtual Places on September 22 1995.
• Johnson-Grace, developers of data compression technology, on February 1 1996
• GNN
• iAmaze
• ImagiNation Network (I.N.N.) from AT&T on August 6 1996.
• CompuServe on February 22 1998.
• Mirabilis (maker of ICQ) on June 8 1998.
• PLS text-search software on November 11 1998.
• Nullsoft (maker of Winamp), in 1999 for $86 million
• Netscape, on March 17 1999 for $4.2 billion.
• NewMedicalHelp Online help
• Spinner.com in May 1999
• Moviefone on May 21 1999 as part of a $525 million stock deal.
• Tegic on December 1 1999.
• Mapquest on July 3 2000.
• Quack.com, a voice-based infrastructure and services company, on August 31 2000 for $200 million.
• eVoice, a telecom services company, in 2001.
• InfoInterActive, a telecom software company, on July 19 2001.
• DeadAIM in 2003.
• Singingfish audio and video search engine, November 2003.
• Advertising.com, an Internet advertising agency, on August 2 2004.
• MailBlocks, a personal, Web-based email service, on August 4 2004.
• Xdrive, a leading provider of online storage and file sharing services, on August 4 2005.
• Wildseed, a privately held mobile software vendor, on August 8 2005.
• Weblogs, Inc., a blogging network that runs such sites as Engadget, Autoblog, Cinematical and TVSquad, on October 6 2005, for $30 million.
• MusicNow, an online music service, from Circuit City, on November 3 2005.
• Truveo, Inc., a video search company, on December 21 2005, for $50 million.
• Lightningcast, Inc a provider of technology that enables broadband audio and video marketing, branding and advertising, in May 2006.
• Userplane, a social networking software provider, in August 2006.
• GameDaily, a gaming web site, in August 2006.
• Relegence, a financial news and information search company, in November 2006.
• TradeDoubler, an Internet marketing provider based in Sweden, for $900 million. (pending approval of TradeDoubler shareholders)

Company sales

AOL (Time Warner) has sold a number of its sub-companies in Europe.

AOL Europe has six million users, but its subscription base had been steadily declining. In 2005, 287,000 European AOL online users migrated to other service providers.

AOL Germany

In September 2006, AOL Germany's ISP business (AOL Deutschland) was sold for $863m (€675m) to Telecom Italia.

AOL UK

In October 2006, AOL UK's ISP business was sold for $688m (£370m) to Carphone Warehouse.

For further details see AOL UK.

AOL France

In October 2006, AOL France's ISP business was sold for $366m (€288m) to neuf Cegetel.

Notable persons associated with AOL

This article does not cite any sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "AOL" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

• Randy Falco (CEO and board chairman)
• Ronald Grant (President and COO)
• Jonathon Miller (former CEO and board chairman)
• Jim Kimsey (former CEO and board chairman)
• Steve Case (former CEO and board chairman)
• Jan Brandt (former President of Marketing)
• Jim Barksdale (former director)
• Colin Powell (former director)
• Stacey Monponsett (2004 AOL All Star Blogger winner)
• Alexander Haig (former director)
• John Barnes (former head researcher)
• Justin Frankel (Nullsoft founder)
• Ted Leonsis (Vice-Chairman, President AOL Audience Group)
• Randall Boe (Executive Vice President and General Counsel)
• Michael Powell (during merging with Time Warner)
• Marc Andreessen (Netscape co-founder)
• Jason Smathers (former AOL employee convicted of stealing the Internet provider's entire subscriber list -- over 30 million consumers, and their 92 million screen names -- and selling it to a known spammer.)
• Jason Calacanis (former CEO of Weblogs, Inc. and former GM of Netscape)
• Maureen Govern (former CTO)
• Barry Schuler (internet pioneer and former CEO)

McAfee

AOL includes McAfee VirusScan and McAfee Firewall Express for its subscribers. Upon introduction, McAfee VirusScan was 8.0 and Firewall Express was 5.0. Initially, it was only available to subscribers using AOL 8.0 and 9.0 software; but has since become available to anyone using versions as old as 6.0.

In mid-2006, AOL began offering a new version of virus and trojan protection, called AOL Active Virus Shield, at . The software is not made by McAfee, but instead is made by Kaspersky Labs. This virus software is totally free, and does not require an AOL account.

AOL Keywords

Keywords are words or phrases that act as shortcuts to AOL areas and Web sites. For example, to view football news and results, you go to AOL Keyword: Football.

Many companies used to pay AOL to have their content featured as an AOL Keyword. One used to see AOL Keywords listed on products or in advertisements in much the same way that Web URLs are used today.

Some AOL keywords at AOL USA, AOL Germany, AOL Canada or AOL UK only work in these countries and cannot be used by AOL customers in other countries (and vice versa). Every other country (where AOL is available) has its own AOL keyword(s).

Free services

On Wednesday August 2 2006 AOL announced: "We’re in the process of offering all of our content and many of our services for free -- with or without an AOL Internet connection."

Among the announced plans are free email services similar to many 'free' email providers. Chatrooms are included with the free service, but users are required to verify the age of an account created under the free plan using a credit card. AOL charges $1 to the credit card provided and then immediately refunds the charge. Thus people making new accounts currently experience problems where as those who have simply converted their pay accounts over to the free plan can chat without worry.

The current version of AOL's software as of August 2006, AOL 9.0, has been identified by Stopbadware as being "under investigation" , for installing additional software without disclosure, and modifying browser preferences, toolbars, and icons. On 16 February 2007 It was announced that AOL now supports OpenID

On October 4 2006, AOL released its new, free internet suite, AOL OpenRide, which combines a web browser, instant messenger, email client and media player in one program window.

AOL currently provides free usage of a custom domain name, which it calls an AOL My eAddress. This currently allows you to create an e-mail address like 'example@whateveryouwant.com', and allows up to 100 other addresses to be created. These e-mail accounts can be accessed in similar manner to other AOL and AIM e-mail accounts. The domain, however, is currently limited to e-mail through AOL's service, and is solely registered to AOL. This may make it unsuitable for a corporate image, and currently does not allow a website or DNS configuration. Details can be found in the AOL My eAddress Terms of Service under section 4 'Domain Name Registrations'.

In late 2006, AOL began offering free and unlimited digital picture storage for anyone who has an account (even free ones) with AOL, AIM, or AOL My eAddress. Users can access their photos at which can be accessed with any account type, paid or free. There is no storage limit on the number of digital photos, and original resolutions are preserved. An ActiveX control provides a drag-n-drop interface, permitting users to drop an entire folder of photos into the web page to upload them. Features include tagging and photo descriptions, similar to Flickr.com's features.

UnCut Video

AOL's latest contribution to its free services is UnCut Video, managed by Hoang Tran. Known privately as AOL's rip-off of YouTube, UnCut Video allows registered users to post and comment on videos. The display videos are presented in smaller dimensions than YouTube's, to the dissatisfaction of users. Also UnCut Video provides no subscription or advanced features comparable to that of YouTube.

With the departure in December 2006 of Stephen Fulton, UnCut Video's primary developer, rumors have abounded that UnCut Video will itself be cut from AOL's line-up of dwindling and unsuccessful products. Recently AOL's has transfered one-third of its QA team from UnCut Video to WebMail, another unsuccesful and buggy product, sounding a possible death-toll for UnCut Video.

Xdrive

Xdrive is a service offered by AOL which allows users to backup their files over the Internet. The service provides a free 5 GB account (free online storage) to anyone who has, or is willing to sign up for a free AOL screenname.

Xdrive also offers remote backup services or higher levels of storage for monthly fees.

Movie studios partnership

On Friday, August 25, 2006, AOL announced that it had signed a deal with several major movie studios to open an online video store allowing users to "download to own" full length movies and television shows. The deal was signed with News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox, Sony Corp.'s Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, NBC Universal's Universal Pictures, and Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group

See also

• All caps
• AOHell
• AOL Explorer
• Eternal September
• Inside-AOL.com
• Playlinc
• AOL Radio
• AOL Sessions
• AOL UK - in October 2006, The Carphone Warehouse acquired AOL UK for £370 million.

Footnotes

1. "AOL LLC on Yahoo HotJobs". Retrieved 2007-01-16.
2. ^ Holahan, Catherine (2006-07-31). "Will Less Be More for AOL?". BusinessWeek. Retrieved 2006-08-01. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
3. Li, Kenneth (2006-07-26). "AOL expected to scrap charges". Yahoo!. Retrieved 2006-08-09. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
4. Yang, Catherine (2005-11-11). "Has AOL Met Its Match?". BusinessWeek. Retrieved 2006-08-01. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
5. "History of Computing Industrial Era (1985-1990)". The History of Computing Project. 2006-03-20. Retrieved 2005-09-24. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
6. "Apple II history chapter 22". 2002-12-31. Retrieved 2005-09-24. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
7. Mills, Elinor. "AOL hanging up on dial-up customers?". CNET. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
8. "AOL price plans". {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
9. "America Online Changes Its Name to AOL". 2006-04-03. Retrieved 2006-07-24. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
10. "The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time" — March 26 2006, PC World Magazine
11. Wells, Jane (2006-06-21). "How hard can it be to cancel an AOL account?". CNBC. Retrieved 2006-07-24. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
12. Dyson, Esther (2006-03-17). "You've Got Goodmail". New York Times. Retrieved 2006-07-24. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
13. http://press.aol.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=1031&section_id=14
14. http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=13535
15. http://www.relegence.com/November8.htm
16. "AOL Germany for sale?". The Register. 2006-04-15. Retrieved 2006-11-08.
17. "Telecom Italia buys AOL Germany". 18 September 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-11. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
18. "Carphone Warehouse to acquire Time Warner's AOL Internet access business in the UK for £370 million". Carphone Warehouse Press Release. 2006-10-11. Retrieved 2006-10-27.
19. "Authorities clear neuf purchase of AOL France". 2006-10-27. Retrieved 2006-11-08.
20. "AOL Uses Refurbished Software to Woo Customers". The Money Times. 4 October 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-11. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
21. ^ Pogue, David (January 6 2007). "Fewer excuses for not doing a PC backup". The New York Times. Retrieved 6-1-2007. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) Quote: "Online backups, where files are shuttled off to the Internet for safekeeping, are suddenly becoming effortless, capacious and even free."
22. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/24/AR2006082401544.html
23. "Carphone Warehouse buying AOL UK". BBC News. 2006-10-11. Retrieved 2006-10-11.

In 2004 along with the launch of AOL 4.0 optimized, AOL also made available the option of personalized greetings. Which would enable the user to hear his or her name while accessing basic functions, mail alerts and logging in or out. America Online users can access the greetings recorded by the female voice of Patricia Walden or the male voice of Chris Kepics (http://chriskepics.googlepages.com) by installing version 9.0 optimized which can be done online by going to AOL Keyword: Upgrade. Once the user is running the current program, go to Keyword: Event Sounds, then select "Change" and "Add Your Name" to access the voices.

References

• Klein, Alec (2003). Stealing Time: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Collapse of AOL Time Warner. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-5984-X.
• Mehta, Stephanie N. & Vogelstein, Fred (November 14, 2005). "AOL: The Relaunch". Fortune, p. 84 – 88.

External links

• AOL corporate site
• AOL.com
• AOL UK Portal
• AOL's Worldwide Services
• AOL Canada

AOL-Owned Sites and Services

• AOL India
• AOL Autos - Used Cars, New Cars, and Kelly Blue Book Values
• AOL Jobs - Job Search and Career Advice
• AOL Personals - Personals, Love, Singles and Advice
• AOL Real Estate - Real Estate Listings and Advice
• AOL@SCHOOL - K-12 Education Portal
• AOL Shopping - Shopping & Price Comparison
• AOL Travel - Airline Tickets, Flights, and Airfare
• AOL UK TV Guide
• KOL - Just for Kids
• RED - Online Teen Community & Entertainment

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