See what "AOL" is in other dictionaries. Computer business: America Online Corporation The success story of the largest information empire

Sometimes aol.com and other COM system errors can be related to problems in the Windows registry. Several programs can use the aol.com file, but when those programs are uninstalled or modified, sometimes "orphaned" (incorrect) COM registry entries are left behind.

Basically, this means that while the actual file path may have been changed, its incorrect former location is still recorded in the Windows registry. When Windows tries to look up these incorrect file references (file locations on your PC), aol.com errors can occur. Additionally, a malware infection may have corrupted the registry entries associated with LXFDVD151. So, these corrupted COM registry entries need to be fixed to fix the problem at the root.

Manually editing the Windows registry to remove invalid aol.com keys is not recommended unless you are PC service professional. Mistakes made when editing the registry can render your PC inoperable and cause irreparable damage to your operating system. In fact, even one comma placed in the wrong place can prevent your computer from booting!

Because of this risk, we highly recommend using a trusted registry cleaner such as WinThruster (Developed by Microsoft Gold Certified Partner) to scan and repair any aol.com-related registry problems. Using a registry cleaner, you can automate the process of finding corrupted registry entries, missing file references (like the one causing the aol.com error), and broken links within the registry. Before each scan, a backup copy is automatically created, allowing you to undo any changes with one click and protecting you from possible damage to your computer. The best part is that eliminating registry errors can dramatically improve system speed and performance.

Warning: Unless you are an experienced PC user, we DO NOT recommend manually editing the Windows Registry. Using Registry Editor incorrectly may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall Windows. We do not guarantee that problems resulting from incorrect use of Registry Editor can be corrected. You use Registry Editor at your own risk.

Before you manually repair the Windows registry, you need to create a backup by exporting a portion of the registry associated with aol.com (for example, LXFDVD151):

Click on the button Begin.
Enter " command" V search bar... DON'T CLICK YET ENTER!
While holding down the keys CTRL-Shift on your keyboard, press ENTER.
A dialog box for access will be displayed.
Click Yes.
The black box opens with a blinking cursor.
Enter " regedit" and press ENTER.
In the Registry Editor, select the aol.com-related key (for example, LXFDVD151) you want to back up.
On the menu File select Export.
On the list Save to select the folder where you want to save the backup copy of the LXFDVD151 key.
In field File name Enter a name for the backup file, for example "LXFDVD151 backup".
Make sure the field Export range value selected Selected branch.
Click Save.
The file will be saved with extension .reg.
You now have a backup of your aol.com-related registry entry.

The following steps for manually editing the registry will not be described in this article, as they are likely to damage your system. If you would like more information about editing the registry manually, please check out the links below.

The market loves Internet companies, and businesses skillfully play on this sympathy. But the reality of online business is that companies often lose the market and rarely gain it again. AOL NYSE: AOL has been lucky enough to reinvent itself and make a comeback. And in this review I will talk about what brought the company back to profit and what its potential is for investors.

AOL Inc.(NYSE: AOL) is an Internet company that owns a network of branded online publications, operates a large advertising network and offers online services to consumers, publishers and advertisers.

Founded in 1985; merged with Time Warner Inc. in 2001; In 2009, it separated from AOL Time Warner into an independent company registered in Delaware, USA.

New strategy

Since 2010, under the leadership of new CEO Tim Armstrong, AOL has set a course for the premium advertising segment and the development of services for promoting brands. Over the course of several years, the company was restructured: it sold off unprofitable and non-core assets and purchased those that met the new strategy. As a result, AOL managed to:

create image-building websites with quality content;
create an effective IT platform for advertising placement and managing its effectiveness;
to gain a foothold in the premium content segment and strengthen its position in the mobile and video markets.

3 business areas

The company's specialization, revised in the fourth quarter of 2012, includes three main areas:

1. Brand Group (33% of revenue). 2. Membership Group (36% of revenue). 3. AOL Networks (31% of revenue).

It is generated from sales of: display and search advertising, Internet access services, subscription packages, software licenses, unique content provided to partners and operators, tickets to events held by TechCrunch.

1. Brand Group comprises:

brand portfolio: The Huffington Post, StyleList, TechCrunch, Engadget, DailyFinance, AOL Autos, AOL Travel, Games.com, Kitchen Daily, Homesessive, Makers, Moviefone, Сambio;
services available on AOL.com, in particular: AOL Search and AOL Mail;
mapping and local services: Patch, MapQuest;
Winamp media player and Shoutcast internet radio.

Brand Group maintains and develops resources in North America and Europe. The Huffington Post site operates in the UK, Canada, France, Spain, Italy and Germany and is ranked number one on the list of most popular blogs. Winamp and Shoutcast are available to users around the world.

AOL Brand Group competitors: Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, IAC/InterActiveCorp., Facebook and Twitter, media companies offering online services.

2.Membership Group comprises:

a set of sites and services provided by subscription on a paid and free regular basis. Subscribers have access to packages from $6.99 to $27.99, including: CompuServe and Netscape Internet access services; PC maintenance and technical support; antiviruses and data protection software; applications for AOL Mail, AIM mobile chat, etc.

Since 2011, the company has been working to improve package offers and simplify tariff plans in order to retain old subscribers and attract new ones.

Dynamics of changes in the subscriber base

In 2012, 2011 and 2010, AOL had a subscriber base of 2.8 million, 3.3 million and 3.9 million, with annual revenues of $705.3 million, $803.2 million and $1,023.6 million, respectively.

AOL Membership Group's competitors: Internet service providers and IT companies offering subscription services.

3. AOL Networks combines:

the largest display advertising network in the US and UK - Advertising.com;
advertising network for video placement AOL On;
advertising platforms: Be On, Marketplace, ADTECH, Pictela, Adap.tv.

The company's web services and platforms are aimed at simplifying the launch of an advertising campaign, automating its purchase and placement, as well as controlling costs and increasing efficiency. AOL Networks services are available in the US, Canada, Japan and Europe.

AOL Networks competitors: AppNexus, Millennial Media, Inc., PubMatic, The Rubicon Project, WPP plc., ValueClick.

3 key benefits

1. Resources. At AOL's disposal: with unique content and target audience, a team of talented authors and editors, advertising networks and advertising platform aggregators, cross-platform solutions for advertising placement, proprietary behavioral statistics and analytics system.

2. Technologies. The company responds to the market movement towards optimization by offering programmatic purchasing technologies – Programmatic Buying and Real-Time Bidding (RTB).

What is Programmatic Buying and RTB?

3. Market position. The company is well positioned in the most dynamic segments of the advertising and online market.

AOL has a strong position in the display advertising segment. In 2013, display advertising is growing by 50% quarter on quarter; the number of advertising campaigns has doubled; accommodation prices increase by 4% per year.

AOL is a leading provider of premium video content. AOL On grows by 70% in viewership; by 90% in terms of the volume of posted videos and by 100% in terms of the number of publishers. The deal to purchase Adap.tv in 3Q 2013 cemented the company in the growing online video and Internet TV market. Adap.tv is aimed at the premium segment and is the only platform adapted to work on all displays.

AOL is a leader in the growing Programmatic Buying segment. The company’s strong position is ensured by its own database of sites (more than 1,500 resources) for collecting user data and infrastructure for processing it, as well as a set of advertising platforms (AdLearn Open Platform, Marketplace, ADTECH).

Industry potential

The Internet industry will continue to grow, with online advertising, Internet access and pay TV making the main contributors to this growth. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, in the next 5 years, online advertising will grow by 20%, Internet access by 14.5%, and pay TV by 11.9%.

According to Digital TV Research, in 2018 the turnover of the global online video and online TV market will reach $35 billion. In 2013, this figure will be $15.94 billion. The advertising market turnover will increase from the current $7.4 billion to $16.4 billion in 2018, and the share of advertising revenue in total online video revenue will decrease from 60% (2010) to 47% (2018).

In the online advertising segment, the shift towards automating the purchase and placement of advertising will continue. However, given the fact that premium advertisers care about the content and image of the publication, complete replacement will not happen. And both approaches will coexist on the market: programmatic buying and . At the same time, programmatic will continue to reduce the cost of online advertising, and the native format will continue to increase its added value.

Behavior will continue to drive advertising effectiveness, which means access to personal user data will be key. As a result, potential restrictions or changes to the terms of use of “Cookies,” the technology underlying behavioral advertising, could negatively impact AOL’s business and the industry as a whole.

What's next?

AOL's further development strategy involves:

Expanding the presence of our brands in international markets. Strengthening positions in the mobile and video segments.
Scaling video platforms for users, publishers and advertisers.
Development of algorithmic purchasing technology and further transition from “manual” advertising purchasing to automated.

The company aims to improve business efficiency through:

targeting the high-margin premium advertising segment;
development of services that increase the value proposition and added value;
controlling operating costs and reducing development costs (as a result of a partial transition to open source software).

Summary

The 3Q 2013 profit was negatively affected by the reorganization of the Patch service (writing off intangible assets, staff reduction).

Based on its latest quarterly results, AOL's business performance continues to improve.

Sales are growing in all directions, their growth rates are returning to double-digit values, and are declining.
The company has a low debt burden, a stable and active share repurchase program.

Everything indicates that the process of adaptation to the new strategy in the company has been completed, and the stage of restructuring and heavy write-offs of assets has finally been completed. AOL is ready to start returning profits to investors, and the market is ready to generate them.

Books

AOL For Dummies, John Kaufeld. A traditional bestseller, AOL For Dummies is the only regularly updated reference book on the market for beginning AOL users Covers the essentials of signing up for AOL, getting around the… eBook
Business Path: AOL. 10 Secrets of the World's No. 1 Webmaster by David Stauffer. "The Business Way: America Online" will help any manager, entrepreneur or investor learn from the AOL story. This is both an inspiring chronicle of a successful business...

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Computer business: America Online Corporation The success story of the largest information empire

Denis Lavnikevich

Think and strive, turning castles in the air into strongholds of achievement.
Agni Yoga

America OnLine Corporation (AOL) is an equally famous brand of the era high technology, like, for example, Microsoft, Novell, IBM or Apple. AOL is as rich as other leaders in the global hi-tech market, but at the same time, perhaps, much more influential. AOL has a much greater influence on the minds of billions of people around the world than even the super-rich Microsoft. The reason is simple: while the creators of the “Redmond giant” Bill Gates and Paul Arts relied on OS and software, AOL founding father Steve Case promoted Internet services, content and mass media from the very beginning. That is, what is really interesting to any person living in our information age.

Steve Case and the history of AOL

Today, Steve Case is one of the most successful businessmen in the world, having transformed his company from a small company providing Internet access services into a huge information empire with billions of consumers of final products and tens of billions of dollars in annual income. Analysts call him a visionary - this is the name of a person who has the ability to foresee the future based on modern realities. The American magazine "Vanity Fair" in 2000 and 2001 named him first in the ranking of fifty business leaders of the information age. Meanwhile, the future genius of the information industry began his career in a very ordinary way.

As a young man, Steve Case studied law and political science at Williams College in Massachusetts (his father also graduated from this college at one time). During his senior year of college, Steve became interested in programming and computer networking. However, at first the interest remained just an interest: after graduating from university, Case began working as an ordinary toothpaste salesman at the Proctor & Gamble corporation. After two years, he moved to Wichita Kansas and began conducting market research for PepsiCo's Pizza Hut division. However, fortunately, he didn’t have to deal with pizza and soft drinks for a long time.

In 1983, his older brother Dan Case introduced him to the management of Control Video Corporation. This company supplied the market with video games for Atari 2600 personal computers. This company, however, did not last long, but for Steve Case it was a good school. There, by the way, he met Jim Kimsey, with whom in 1985 he founded the company Quantum Computer Services, which began providing various paid online services. Business was booming (fortunately, the computer revolution had broken out), and Quantum Computer Services, which by that time already had many clients, needed a new name. The company announced a competition. Steve Case, CEO of Quantum Computer Services, offered his proper name- America OnLine, which was then adopted by the company’s board of directors.

AOL expansion

By and large, the entire history of AOL is a history of mergers, acquisitions and purchases of other companies, both smaller and larger. The first truly major merger was the acquisition of CompuServe. It is valued at $1.2 billion, and through this transaction AOL was able to expand its influence on the European market: the global CompuServe network was actively developed by the company in 80 countries and now has about five million regular users. But the corporation's goal was to attract an even larger audience. And in December 1998, AOL bought Netscape Communications. The deal is estimated by experts at $4.2 billion. As a result, in addition to the Netscape browser, AOL also took over the Netcenter website, which at that time had about 20 million users. Shortly thereafter, AOL and Sun Microsystems announced a long-term agreement in which AOL could leverage Sun's expertise in developing Java-based products, and Sun, in turn, would be able to take advantage of the enterprise side of Netscape's business. This was followed by very successful acquisitions of such recognized authorities in modern media and Internet technologies as NullSoft Winamp and Mirabilis ICQ, as well as a number of other lesser-known companies. But these were still only flowers.

Dramatic changes both in the fate of AOL itself and in the global media market occurred at the moment when the merger of AOL and Time Warner corporations became a shocking reality for everyone. The most interesting thing was that the Time Warner media empire was five times larger than AOL, but Steve Case managed to achieve a dominant position in the combined company. Simply put, the herring swallowed the whale. And everything happened very simply, without much intrigue or legal disputes. Steve Case in early 2001 simply called the head of Time Warner's management, Gerald Levin, and popularly explained that to the advanced information technologies that AOL provides, it was simply necessary to add the information component that Time Warner would provide. From the moment the interlocutors hung up, the story of the now united AOL Time Warner corporation, whose capitalization is estimated at more than 250 billion dollars, began.

For reference: the history of Time Warner before the merger with AOL

Time Publishing House was founded in 1922 and initially published a magazine of the same name. Subsequently, the number of publications increased, and currently The company owns perhaps the most recognizable selection of general education and highly specialized journals. The most famous among them are undoubtedly “Time”, “People”, “Fortune”, “Money”, “Sports Illustrated”, “Health”, “Yachting”, “Golf” and many others. In 1989, Time, which had previously been exclusively engaged in publishing magazines, announced its merger with one of the leaders in the media market, Warner Communications. In 1996, Time Warner acquired another “whale” of the media product market, the brainchild of the legendary Ted Turner (creator of CNN), the Turner Broadcasting System company.

The year of formation of Turner Broadcasting is considered to be 1979, when, after a major internal restructuring, Turner Communications Group was renamed Turner Broadcasting Inc. Over the twenty-odd years of its existence, the company has grown into a colossal media company that owns a huge number of business lines, the main ones being TNT, Cartoon Network, Turner Classic Movies, as well as all the American and European divisions of CNN and Boomerang.

AOL Time Warner Structure

As we have already seen, the story of AOL Time Warner is not the story of the growth of one company from scratch, but the result of many mergers and acquisitions. This is a motley conglomerate of many small and big companies, which, merging together, form a huge media empire. One of the journalists very accurately noted: “The size of this empire is so large that its influence on the life of all mankind can only be compared with the influence of the change of seasons. In many countries, American informational resources and blockbusters occupy 80-90% of all airtime. The huge media corporation AOL Time Warner, having all the necessary means to capture a large share of the international market, not only provides information resources, but also earns good money from it." Below we list the largest and most profitable divisions of AOL Time Warner, which became such thanks to skillful combining computer and telecommunication technologies with traditional means mass media.

AOL Internet portal
(www.aol.com)

About ten years ago, most users associated the Internet exclusively with AOL online services. Then, when the WWW burst into our lives, the AOL website was for a long time the most visited place on the Internet. Every American using the Internet considered it his duty to have Mailbox on www.aol.com (especially since there were practically no others at that time). AOL provided Internet users with exactly what they needed - a huge portal where they could find everything from games to forums. various topics. Add here ease of navigation and a well-remembered name - and you will understand why the AOL portal has long been (and in the US remains to this day) the leader of user preferences.

However, already in the second half of the 90s, the information content of the portal began to lag behind the growth of user requests. In this situation, the easiest way was to team up with one of the large media companies in order to add its content to its own advanced information technologies. At the same time, the experience of an offline company and respect from readers and viewers were added to the increase in the information content of the sites. The decisive step, as we already know, was made in January 2001, as a result of which the AOL Time Warner media empire was formed, headed by Steve Case.

America Online Interactive Services Division
(www.corp.aol.com)

Founded in 1985, the company has achieved significant success in the areas of Internet technologies, interactive services and e-commerce. Among the successes of the division are such software products as AOL Instant Messenger (www.aim.com), AOLbyPHONE, AOL@School; concepts of Digital City, AOL Anywhere.com, iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions, NullSoft Winamp (www.winamp.com), Mirabilis ICQ (www.icq.com), Netscape Navigator and Communicator browsers (www.netscape.com) and other promising development.

AOLbyPHONE is one of latest achievements companies in the voice Internet market. The service allows you to receive information ordered in advance over the phone, which will be dictated by a synthesized voice. AOL@School is a project designed to educate schoolchildren. Contains expert-certified materials for easy absorption school curriculum, as well as a huge number of links to Additional information in the Internet. Digital City - project virtual city with all its advantages and disadvantages: this is the organization of a virtual market, and the creation of virtual department stores and shops. The city also has entertainment centers where residents can have a great time, and separate offices where companies will house their virtual staff. The city also has a virtual police force that plays the role of moderators. By creating this city, AOL took aim at the holy of holies - transferring real life to the virtual realm.

Currently, the company's greatest pride is that a unique user spends an average of about an hour a day visiting AOL resources. There are now about 50 million such users on all AOL resources combined. Digital City is designed to increase this figure. All other developments can be considered as auxiliary ones that will serve a single common cause: the formation of a single community - the population of the future virtual city.

AOL Anywhere.com allows access from any device (PDA, mobile phone, pager, etc.) to the services and content provided by the media empire.

iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions is a project being developed jointly with Sun Microsystems. The product line includes software and some services for organizing and accessing virtual offices, stores and other e-commerce platforms. Under the terms of the agreement between the corporations, iPlanet services for Sun are integral part more complex education, Sun ONE (Open Net Environment), positioned on the market as a competitor to the unified Microsoft .NET network platform.

Turner Broadcasting and Home Box Office
(www.hbo.com)

Turner Broadcasting's television division primarily produces news, television shows and other content for broadcast through the Home Box Office and other worldwide broadcast systems - TNT, Cartoon Network, Turner Classic Movies, CNN and Boomerang. Home Box Office is one of America's largest home television networks, with more than 45 million subscribers. More than eighty broadcast channels on a wide variety of topics can certainly satisfy any viewer. At the moment, this division is being prepared to be replaced by the interactive video division (AOL Time Warner Interactive Video) - young, but very promising direction companies.

Time Inc. and Time Warner Trade Publishing
(www.twbookmark.com)

It was Steve Case who became the author brilliant idea: make a single integrated product from the world famous paper magazines of the Time publishing house ("Time", "People", "Fortune", "Money", "Sports Illustrated", "Health", "Yachting", "Golf" and others) and their Internet versions. The resulting symbiosis turned out to be a surprisingly profitable business - and this in the context of a general decline in the information and Internet markets that began in 2001. Currently, only advertising for Time Inc. publications. America Online brings in more than 100,000 new subscribers every month through its Internet services.

Time Warner Trade Publishing is one of the company's youngest divisions. It publishes books on various topics, ranging from children's fairy tales and science fiction to books on economics and law. Currently, the number of book titles published by the publishing house is increasing by 50 monthly. And the site of this division brings AOL Time Warner about eight million visitors a month.

Film company Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema

Warner Bros. is the oldest and one of the most profitable divisions of AOL Time Warner. This film company was created back in 1918 by the Warner brothers in California. Today Warner Bros. - the leader of the global film industry in everything: in terms of the number of Oscars, film budgets, actors' fees, and volume of output. "The Matrix", by the way, was filmed at Warner Bros.

The film studio New Line Cinema is no less famous for its films. Among her most famous and profitable films are such masterpieces as “Mortal Kombat” and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. Of course, the exclusive right to publish and distribute all films of these two film companies on DVD and other media also belongs to AOL Time Warner.

Warner Music Group

Music, like cinema, is one of the main areas of show business. It would be surprising if AOL Time Warner passed up such a revenue source. Now, under the leadership of a division called Warner Music Group, such well-known record companies as Atlantic, Elektra, London-Sire Records Inc., Rhino, Warner Bros. operate. Records and others. In addition, the group is a leader in DVD production and is among the top ten in CD production. The company is currently looking for new ways to market audio products, for which AOL Time Warner, together with RealNetworks, has developed a set of services called MusicNet, which allows users to search for a specific song by title or artist name and download it to their computer.

"Holy War" AOL Time Warner vs Microsoft

The history of AOL is also the history of a continuous war with Microsoft Corporation. This is not surprising: companies have been operating in the same information markets for a long time and competing for the same consumer groups. Interesting fact: at the very beginning of the existence of AOL, Bill Gates told Steve Case that he could either buy 20% or all of Case's company, or enter into this business himself and ruin it. But such impudence only provoked Case, and he decided to prove his superiority at all costs. As journalists noted a decade later, "AOL's merger with Time Warner was a well-thought-out multi-step combination that put Microsoft a step below its competitor."

Already in 2001, AOL sued Microsoft, accusing it of unfair competition due to its monopoly position in the browser market. This came after Netscape's browsers lost 50% of the market share due to Microsoft's bundling of Internet Explorer into Windows. Then the war began in the online services market. At the end of May 2001, Microsoft Corporation openly announced its intention to lure users of the more expensive AOL services by offering them MSN services as an alternative. After this, Microsoft management demanded that AOL stop using Real Player to broadcast its multimedia content, as well as develop a unified standard for instant messaging services and provide access to the ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger user databases. Of course, Steve Case categorically refused to do this, which did not improve the relationship between the two giants. So far, only lawyers are benefiting from this confrontation between corporations.

AOL Time Warner: Looking to the Future

Steve Case believes that humanity is on the verge of another computer revolution. In his opinion, the process of merging computers, household devices and the Global Network into a single whole has already begun. And it is this process that he is betting on to shape the future of AOL Time Warner. Meanwhile, the company continues its policy of combining with leading players in the market information technologies. In particular, agreements have been concluded with Philips, Sony and Samsung. These companies will develop new set-top boxes for the interactive television network (video-on-demand). In turn, AOL Time Warner will provide them with own resources to promote other products of these companies on the market. Considering that AOL Time Warner is not under the same fire of criticism and pressure from government agencies around the world as Microsoft, it can be assumed that it is the brainchild of Steve Case, and not Bill Gates, that will determine what our world will look like in a decade or two.