America Online 2009 Annual Report Download - page 8

Table of Contents
• Pursuing Local Opportunities. We believe that there are significant opportunities for growth in the area of local content, platforms and services,
by providing comprehensive content covering all geographic areas from local neighborhoods to major metropolitan areas. By enhancing these
local offerings we seek to provide consumers with a comprehensive local experience.
• Enhancing Our Established Consumer Applications. We seek to increase the reach of and engagement on our established consumer applications
(including communications offerings such as our e-mail products and instant messaging applications) on multiple platforms and digital devices.
• Increasing Advertising Sales on Our Own Properties and Growing the Third Party Network. We seek to provide premium global advertisers with
effective and efficient means of reaching our consumers. In addition, we seek to significantly increase the number of publishers and advertisers
utilizing our third-party advertising network by providing an open, transparent and easy-to-use advertising system that offers unique and valuable
insights to our publishers and advertisers.
• Becoming a Consumer-Friendly Retailer of Subscription Products and Services. We seek to develop, test and market new subscription products
that are owned by us and by third parties. To facilitate this goal, we are planning to develop a single, consumer-facing platform that will allow us
to manage and distribute these additional subscription products as well as our subscription access service.
Business Overview
Our business operations are focused on the following:
• AOL Properties. We seek to be a global publisher of relevant and engaging online content by utilizing open and highly scalable publishing
platforms and content management systems, as well as a leading online provider of consumer products and services. AOL Properties include our
owned and operated content, products and services in the Content, Local, Paid Services and Consumer Applications strategy areas in addition to
our AOL Ventures offerings.
We generate advertising revenues from our owned and operated content, products and services through the sale of display advertising and search
and contextual advertising. We seek to provide effective and efficient advertising solutions utilizing data-driven insights that help advertisers
decide how best to engage consumers.
We also generate revenues through our subscription access service. We view our subscription access service as a valuable distribution channel for
AOL Properties. Our access service subscribers are important users of AOL Properties and engaging both present and former access service
subscribers is an important component of our strategy. In addition, our subscription access service will remain an important source of revenue
and cash flow for us in the near term. We also generate revenues from subscriptions to other products and services.
Global consumers are increasingly accessing and using the Internet through devices other than personal computers, such as digital devices (e.g.,
smartphones). As a result, we seek to ensure that our content, products and services are compatible with such devices so that our consumers are
able to access and use our content, products and services via these devices.
• Third Party Network. We also generate advertising revenues through the sale of advertising on third-party websites and on digital devices, which
we collectively refer to as the "Third Party Network." Our mission is to provide an open and transparent advertising system that is easy-to-use
and offers our publishers and advertisers unique and valuable insights. We seek to significantly increase the number of publishers and advertisers
utilizing the Third Party Network.
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