Your Take MediaShift . What's the Future of AOL? | PBS

Your Take »

  • Share

What's the Future of AOL?

Mark Glaser

by Mark Glaser, April 8, 2011

Tagged: , , , , ,

Who can forget the good old days of America Online, the company of the mid-'90s that spent a ton of money mailing out CD-ROMs for people to try it. Over the years, it has morphed from a dial-up service to a content company to a mega-merger with Time Warner to a spin-off back into a dial-up service with content. In fact, 43% of the company's revenues still come from subscriptions, which make up a majority of its profit. But AOL has been aggressive in moving away from the dial-up and ISP model and into content, buying up TechCrunch and more recently Huffington Post for $315 million. But there have been issues along the way, with a Huffington Post blogger strike and the defection of 8 senior staffers from Engadget to SB Nation.

So what will happen to AOL in this latest iteration? Vote in our poll and tell us more in the comments below.


  • Report an Error
    @

    The information you supply will only be used to send this email.

  • Share

AOL has tried various logos and business models over the years, including the new look of "Aol." in 2009

Check out MediaShift Sponsorship opportunities!

Multimedia

5Across Video Show

5Across: Beyond the Book: E-Books and Self-Publishing

Subscribe

All Episodes »

The Mediatwits

Facebook IPO Mania; Internet Week; 16th Webby Awards

Subscribe

Subscribe in iTunes

All Episodes »

Newsletters

MediaShift delivers the best news on media and technology directly to your in-box.

Best of MediaShift

By This Author

  • Mediatwits #49: Facebook IPO Mania; Internet Week; 16th Webby Awards

    Welcome to the 49th episode of the Mediatwits podcast, with Mark Glaser and Dorian Benkoil as co-hosts. Today is the day for the Facebook IPO, so we've got it covered like a wet blanket. Special guests Debra Aho Williamson of eMarketer and Troy Young of SAY Media talk over the ins and outs of Facebook as it soars into the...

  • Mediatwits #48: Yahoo CEO Under Fire; Pros and Cons of Metered Pay Walls

    Welcome to the 48th episode of the Mediatwits podcast, with Mark Glaser and the Rafat Ali as co-hosts. On this show, we turn to the chaotic soap opera that continues at Yahoo, once an Internet darling on its umpteenth remake. Its new CEO Scott Thompson appears to have padded his bio with a computer science degree that he never received....

  • Mediatwits #47: Positively Dan Rather; Future of Facebook; Rise of Snip.it

    Welcome to the 47th episode of the Mediatwits podcast, this time with Mark Glaser and the Rafat Ali as co-hosts. On this show, Rafat had the honor (and early-morning wakeup call) to interview news icon Dan Rather at 7 a.m. while Rather was traveling by train to Washington, D.C. Rather has a new memoir out, "Rather Outspoken," and talked to...

Stay Informed

Who We Are

MediaShift tracks how new media -- from weblogs to podcasts to citizen journalism -- are changing society and culture.

Reader Poll