AOL

AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is best known for its online software suite, also called AOL, that allowed customers to access the world's largest "walled garden" online community and eventually reach out to the Internet as a whole. At its prime, AOL's membership was over 30 million members worldwide, most of whom accessed the AOL service through the AOL software suite.

This year AOL celebrates its 25th anniversary as a leading global Web services company. Twenty-five years ago, the company was known as Quantum Computer Services offering an online service named Q-Link. Quantum launched its first instant messenger service in 1989 and welcomed users with that familiar saying 'You've got mail!'.

It wasn't until 1991 that Quantum was renamed America Online through an employee contest. The following year, America Online, commonly called AOL, went public on NASDAQ. Starting in 1993, our disk mailings connected thousands of households to the Internet, and two years later we reached our one million member mark. In 1995, AOL extended its service internationally and launched AOL Germany. 

As more and more users connected to the Internet, AOL began expanding its products and services. In 1995, AOL debuted the AOL.com homepage. The next year AOL reached five million members and introduced a flat-rate pricing program. That same year, AOL launched the Buddy List for chatting and welcomed the Running Man as a new AOLer. Two years later, the Buddy List was inducted into the Smithsonian collection.

While our user base grew, so did our company. In 1998, AOL acquired CompuServe and ICQ. The following year, Moviefone and Netscape joined our suite of products. MapQuest became AOL's trusted mapping source in 2000. Then, in 2001, AOL merged with Time Warner to create AOL Time Warner. In 2004, AOL connected advertisers to users using the newly-acquired Advertising.com.

America Online made history in 2005 by becoming the first Internet company to win an Emmy. The very next year, we officially changed our name to AOL and began offering our content and services free of charge. Over the next three years, AOL launched new content sites totaling more than 80 sites by 2009. In 2009, the Running Man was inducted into the Madison Avenue Advertising Walk of Fame and was also recognized in the Advertising Icon Museum. Later that year, AOL Inc. became an independent, publicly-traded company. In 2010, we look forward to many more historical moments.