AOL (America Online) began as an internet service provider and has grown to be a massive network of content, products, and software. The company merged with Time Warner in 2001 following a year-long approval process, creating a new company called "AOL Time Warner." In 2003, the company dropped the "AOL" from its name, and that title went back to referring exclusively to the online community and service. On January 28, 2009, the company announced that it would cut 700 employees due to the week economy and advertising market, totally about 10% of their entire staff.http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090128/exclusive-aol-to-layoff-10-percent-of-staff-due-to-ad-meltdown-to-refocus-on-new-structure/

The company that eventually became AOL initially started out in a few other directions including music on demand and online video game services. AOL didn't really start to become the online community its known for today until 1991. At the time other similar services like CompuServe and Prodigy offered some of the first pay dial-up communities. Once AOL surpassed the 10 million subscriber count in 2006 they had welcome become the largest such online community. As other providers started to allow for direct access to the public Internet, AOL was slow to respond. Subscriptions numbers fell as well as AOL's once high value of $240 Billion. Lately the company has repositioned itself as a content provider, similar to companies like Yahoo.

On June 11, 2009, AOL announced that they had acquired the news website Patch and Going.http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10262680-36.html Currently AOL operate such online applications as Mapquest, AOL Mail, AIM and Lifestream.http://corp.aol.com/products-services/consumer-applications

The company that eventually became AOL initially started out in a few other directions including music on demand and online video game services. AOL didn't really start to become the online community its known for today until 1991. At the time other similar services like CompuServe and Prodigy offered some of the first pay dial-up communities. Once AOL surpassed the 10 million subscriber count in 2006 they had welcome become the largest such online community. As other providers started to allow for direct access to the public Internet, AOL was slow to respond. Subscriptions numbers fell as well as AOL's once high value of $240 Billion. Lately the company has repositioned itself as a content provider, similar to companies like Yahoo.

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