AOL Where Did it Go Wrong

bm Aol. www.busmanagement.com As Bebo looks set to become extinct in the coming weeks, Aol are just going to have to admit that they got it very wrong. But Aol have previous when it comes to bad business decisions and really messed things up considering at one time they were The internet provider, but they lacked the vision to capitalise on their position as soon as other, more innovative firms entered the market, WHERE DID IT GO WRONG? NUMBER OF USERS 10 15 20 25 35 40 America Online acquires Time Warner for $160 bn, combined value of $350 bn. AOL Time Warner is born. Oaline JUN 2000 JUN 2001 A major partnership with Google to offer search and sponsored links. JUN 2002 Subscribers peak 26.7m First ever decline in "Welcome to the World Wide Wow." advertising campaign New $65 a month broadband members for a quarter JUN 2003 internet access launched Introduces a new version of the Aol.com Web site that will be an advertising-supported Web portal free to users - meant to take on Yahoo and MSN JUN 2004 AOL O JUN 2005 Stay Connecteod with Google invest $1 billion for a 5% stake as part of a partnership that expands existing search engine deal to include collaboration on advertising, instant messaging and video. Google also offer a $300 million credit that Aol can use to buy keyword-based ads from Google, to promote the Aol.com portal. Also adveritising with Yahoo. JUN 2006 Aol.com portal abandoned in favor of a strategy built on several different brands. JUN 2007 Aol acquired social networking site Bebo for $850 million in cash. Bebo 40m users JUN 2008 Time Warner fires the two top leaders replaces them with Tim Armstrong former top executive from Google Aol and Time Warner formally split back into two independent companies. JUN 2009 Aol. 12m users Aol has announced plans to sell or shut down Bebo. JUN 2010 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 How Aol compares to its main competitors (visits per month) Aol owns and operates 87 content sites. Here is a look the most well know (visits per month/cost of acquication) Yahoo.com MSN.com Aol.com MapQuest 36,000,000/S1.1bn Bebo Engadget 1,400,000/$25m 123,000,000 115,000,000 91.700.000 3,400,000/S850m Internet visits using quantcast.com Sources: wikipedia | NYT | Aol | CNet