AOL

AOL Media LLC (formerly a predecessor company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and former online service provider based in New York City, and a brand marketed by Italian conglomerate Bending Spoons.

The service traces its history to an online service known as PlayNET. PlayNET licensed its software to Quantum Link (Q-Link), which went online in November 1985. A new IBM PC client was launched in 1988, and eventually renamed as America Online (abbreviated as AOL) in 1989. AOL grew to become the largest online service, displacing established players like CompuServe and Prodigy. By 1995, AOL had about three million active users.

AOL was at one point the most recognized brand on the Web in the United States. AOL once provided a dial-up Internet service to millions of Americans and pioneered instant messaging and chat rooms with AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). In 1998, AOL purchased Netscape for US$4.2 billion. By 2000, AOL was providing internet service to over 20 million consumers, dominating the market of internet service providers (ISPs). In 2001, at the height of its popularity, it purchased the media conglomerate Time Warner in the largest merger in US history. AOL shrank rapidly thereafter, partly due to the decline of dial-up and rise of broadband.

AOL was spun off from Time Warner in 2009, with Tim Armstrong appointed the new CEO. Under his leadership, the company invested in media brands and advertising technologies. In 2015, AOL was acquired by Verizon Communications for $4.4 billion, and was merged with Yahoo! the following year after the latter was also acquired by Verizon.

In May 2021, Verizon announced it would sell Yahoo and thus AOL to private equity firm Apollo Global Management for $5 billion, and the sale was completed at the end of August.