America Online 2010 Annual Report Download - page 24

Table of Contents
In addition, many of our employees with the necessary skills to maintain and repair our legacy technology infrastructure have either been reassigned
within AOL or are no longer with AOL, and this may adversely impact our ability to effectively manage our legacy infrastructure.
If we are unable to hire, engage and retain key management and other personnel, our business could be adversely affected.
Our future success depends in large part upon the continued service of key members of our management team. In particular, Tim Armstrong, our CEO,
is critical to AOL's overall management, as well as the development of AOL's strategic direction and culture. We do not maintain any key-person life
insurance policies.
We are also dependent on our ability to hire, engage and retain talented, highly-skilled employees, including employees with specific areas of expertise
such as content creation. Accomplishing this may be difficult due to many factors, including fluctuations in global economic and industry conditions, frequent
changes in our management and leadership and the attractiveness of our compensation programs relative to those of our competitors. If we do not succeed in
retaining and engaging our key employees and in attracting new key personnel, including personnel with specific areas of expertise, we may be unable to meet
our strategic objectives and, as a result, our business could be adversely affected.
A failure to scale and adapt our existing technology architecture to manage the expansion of our offerings could adversely affect our business.
We expect to continue to expand our offerings to consumers, advertisers and publishers, whether through internal growth or through acquiring other
companies or assets. Expanding the amount and type of our offerings or integrating third-party technologies will require substantial expenditures to scale or
adapt our technology infrastructure. The technology architectures utilized for our consumer offerings and advertising services are highly complex and may not
provide satisfactory support as usage increases and products and services expand, change and become more complex in the future. We may make additional
changes to our architectures and systems to deliver our consumer offerings and services to advertisers and publishers, including moving to completely new
technology architectures and systems. Such changes may be challenging to implement and manage, may take time to test and deploy, may cause us to incur
substantial costs and may cause us to suffer data loss or delays or interruptions in service. These delays or interruptions in service may cause consumers,
advertisers and publishers to become dissatisfied with our offerings and could adversely affect our business.
Certain parts of our business and operations are experiencing rapid expansion. If we fail to effectively manage our expansion, our business and operating
results could be harmed.
We have undertaken rapid expansion in certain parts of our business in 2010, in particular Patch, growing from approximately 30 sites in January 2010
to 790 sites as of February 18, 2011. We also hired approximately 1,200 Patch employees as of December 31, 2010. Such expansion has placed, and will
continue to place, significant demands on our management, operational, and financial infrastructure. If we do not continue to effectively manage our
expansion, the quality of our products and services could suffer, which could negatively affect our brand and operating results. To effectively manage this
expansion, we will need to continue to improve our operational, financial and management controls, including our reporting systems and compliance
procedures. These systems enhancements and improvements may require significant capital expenditures and management resources. Failure to implement
these improvements could hurt our ability to manage our expansion and our financial position.
One of the factors in the demand for our products and services is the success of our marketing campaigns, and there can be no assurance that our
promotional and other marketing campaigns will be successful or will generate interest in our products and services.
We spend money on sponsorships, promotional events, and other marketing campaigns in order to inform consumers about the products and services
we offer. In addition, a core goal of our marketing efforts is to
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