America Online 2014 Annual Report Download - page 85

Download and view the complete annual report

Please find page 85 of the 2014 America Online annual report below. You can navigate through the pages in the report by either clicking on the pages listed below, or by using the keyword search tool below to find specific information within the annual report.

Page out of 156

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15
  • 16
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19
  • 20
  • 21
  • 22
  • 23
  • 24
  • 25
  • 26
  • 27
  • 28
  • 29
  • 30
  • 31
  • 32
  • 33
  • 34
  • 35
  • 36
  • 37
  • 38
  • 39
  • 40
  • 41
  • 42
  • 43
  • 44
  • 45
  • 46
  • 47
  • 48
  • 49
  • 50
  • 51
  • 52
  • 53
  • 54
  • 55
  • 56
  • 57
  • 58
  • 59
  • 60
  • 61
  • 62
  • 63
  • 64
  • 65
  • 66
  • 67
  • 68
  • 69
  • 70
  • 71
  • 72
  • 73
  • 74
  • 75
  • 76
  • 77
  • 78
  • 79
  • 80
  • 81
  • 82
  • 83
  • 84
  • 85
  • 86
  • 87
  • 88
  • 89
  • 90
  • 91
  • 92
  • 93
  • 94
  • 95
  • 96
  • 97
  • 98
  • 99
  • 100
  • 101
  • 102
  • 103
  • 104
  • 105
  • 106
  • 107
  • 108
  • 109
  • 110
  • 111
  • 112
  • 113
  • 114
  • 115
  • 116
  • 117
  • 118
  • 119
  • 120
  • 121
  • 122
  • 123
  • 124
  • 125
  • 126
  • 127
  • 128
  • 129
  • 130
  • 131
  • 132
  • 133
  • 134
  • 135
  • 136
  • 137
  • 138
  • 139
  • 140
  • 141
  • 142
  • 143
  • 144
  • 145
  • 146
  • 147
  • 148
  • 149
  • 150
  • 151
  • 152
  • 153
  • 154
  • 155
  • 156

AOL INC.
NOTES TO THE CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
NOTE 1—DESCRIPTION OF BUSINESS, BASIS OF PRESENTATION AND SUMMARY OF
SIGNIFICANT ACCOUNTING POLICIES
Description of Business
AOL Inc. (“AOL” or the “Company”) is a leading global media technology company with a substantial
worldwide audience and a suite of digital brands, products and services that it offers to consumers, advertisers,
publishers and subscribers. AOL is focused on attracting and engaging consumers by creating and offering high
quality branded online digital content, products and services and providing valuable online advertising services
on both AOL Properties and on third party internet sites (the “Third Party Properties”). AOL Properties include
the Company’s owned and operated content, products and services in the Membership Group and Brand Group
segments. AOL Properties also includes co-branded websites owned or operated by third parties for which
certain criteria have been met, including the requirement that the internet traffic has been assigned to the
Company.
The Company’s strategy is to focus its resources on AOL’s core competitive strengths in content,
advertising, technology platforms, video and paid services while expanding the distribution of its premium
content and its product and service offerings on multiple platforms and digital devices, including on internet-
enabled televisions, smartphones and tablets. AOL continues to reinvigorate its culture and brand by prioritizing
the consumer experience, making greater use of data-driven insights and encouraging innovation.
AOL’s reportable segments are the Brand Group, the Membership Group and AOL Platforms (previously
referred to as AOL Networks). In addition to the above reportable segments, AOL has a corporate and other
category that includes activities that are not directly attributable to or allocable to a specific segment.
Brand Group
The Brand Group consists of AOL’s portfolio of distinct and unique content brands as well as certain
service brands. The results for this segment reflect the performance of the Company’s advertising offerings on a
number of owned and operated sites, such as AOL.com, The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, and MapQuest and
include its multi-screen content optimization and personalization technology.
Membership Group
The Membership Group consists of offerings that serve AOL registered account holders, both free and paid,
and is focused on delivering world-class experiences to AOL’s users who rely on these AOL products and
properties. The results for this segment include AOL’s subscription offerings and advertising offerings on
Membership Group properties, including communications products, such as AOL Mail.
AOL Platforms
AOL Platforms consists of interconnected programmatic (automated) and premium advertising offerings
and technologies that advertisers and publishers use to reach consumers across all devices (i.e., desktop, mobile,
tablet and internet-enabled television), and includes formats such as display, including video and social formats.
AOL Platforms also provides additional technology solutions that enhance its programmatic platforms and
enable advertisers and publishers to have an end-to-end open programmatic media buying experience by
providing access to Third Party Properties, ad serving, content personalization and attribution and analytics. The
results for this segment include the performance of Advertising.com, AdLearn Open Platform, Adap.tv,
Marketplace by ADTECH (“Marketplace”), AOL On, Be On, ADTECH, Gravity and Convertro. The Company
69