America Online
 | |
| Type: | Public |
| Industry: | Internet |
| Founded: | 1983 |
| Founder(s): | William Von Meister |
| Headquarters: | New York |
| Country: | USA |
| Employees: | 5860 [1] |
| Revenue: | $2.417 billion as of 2010 [2] |
| Website: | www.aol.com |
| Blog: | Aol Blog |
| Facebook: | AOL |
| Twitter: |  @AOL
|
| Key People | |
| Tim Armstrong, Chairman & CEO | |
America Online (AOL) provides global web services, tools, platforms and maintains content sites in different niche. The company also offers online advertising services for websites owned and operated websites by AOL as well as to third-party websites. AOL also provides subscription-based access service for consumers in the U.S.[3]
History
AOL started as an online gaming company known as Control Video Corporation (CVC), which was founded by William Von Meister in 1983. Its' only product was called Gameline, which was used by Atari 2600 players to download temporary games through a modem. Jim Kemsey joined the company as CEO on May of 1983. He lead the company in providing online services which resulted to the development of Quantum Link (Q-Link) for Commodore 64 and 128 Models.Q-Link is a modification of the Playnet System. In 1988, CVC and Apple partnered in launching the Apple Link and with IBM which was called PC Link. [4] [5]