AOL

Also known as Aol., aol.com, Tegic, AmericaOnline, America Online, AOL RED, America OnLine, AmericaOnLine

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.

OverviewAI-generated

AOL, also known as America Online, is an active company and funder established in 1985. The organization is based in New York, United States, and currently employs 5,600 people. Its official website is aol.com.

The company maintains a social media following of 167,700. It is associated with specific IPv4 routing prefixes, including 172.128.0.0/10, 172.200.0.0/13, 172.208.0.0/13, and 172.216.0.0/16. AOL is referenced by 5,355 other encyclopedia articles.

Synthesized by Vinony from 21 facts across 4 sources: Wikidata, Firecrawl, ROR, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Key facts

Company.name: AOL Media LLC
Company.logo: AOL logo (2024).svg
Company.type: Subsidiary
Company.hq_location: 770 Broadway
Company.hq_location_city: New York City
Company.hq_location_country: U.S.
Company.area_served: Worldwide
Company.services: Web portal and online services
Company.num_employees: 5,600
Software.name: AOL Desktop
Software.developer: AOL
Software.latest release version: 9.8(Windows)1.7 (macOS)
Software.latest release date: August 10, 2015
Software.latest preview version: 11.0.3418
Software.latest preview date: November 11, 2021.
Software.programming language: C++
Software.operating system: Microsoft Windows XP or later, Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later
Software.genre: Internet Suite

via Wikipedia infobox

Research organization · ROR

Type: Company, Funder
Founded: 1985
Location: New York, United States
Also known as: America Online
Status: Active

Website →Wikipedia →ROR →

GRID grid.467198.5

Described at

AOL Inc. - Wikirate, an Open ESG Data Platform

wikirate.org →

Link to a page describing this subject · 2,709 chars · not written by Vinony

~51 min read

Encyclopedic overview

31 sections

Contents

History
1983–1991: early years
1991–1999: Internet age
2000–2008: As AOL Time Warner
2009–2015: As an independent digital media company
2015–2021: As part of Verizon
Merger into Oath
2021–2025: As part of Yahoo!
2025: Acquisition by Bending Spoons
Products and services
Content
Advertising
Membership
AOL Desktop
Criticism
Community leaders
Billing disputes
Account cancellation
Direct marketing of disks
Software
Usenet newsgroups
Terms of Service (TOS)
Certified email
Search data
User list exposure
AOL's Computer Checkup "scareware"
NSA PRISM program
Hosting of user profiles changed, then discontinued
See also
References
External links

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.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “AOL” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.