IP Democracy: More on AOL's Platform A

AOL's two top honchos spoke today (webcast here) at Merrill Lynch's Media and Entertainment Conference shedding more light on the reorganization of Time Warner's online unit. Platform A is the overarching umbrella term for the integration of a bundle of AOL-owned sites, and other properties, into a broad framework aimed at "monetizing" the welter of AOL brands, applications and services.

It all seems to hinge on Advertising.com, but there is a lot more going on. For one thing, a lot of AOL's "verticals" have been or will soon be relaunched, with fresher looks and added content. (One bit of content-related news: Jim Cramer will start blogging for AOL's Money & Finance vertical, CEO Randy Falco said.) Other products, including aging Mapquest, are also being overhauled.

AOL has rejiggered its search function in the hopes of mitigating any further losses to Google. It has done so by...working with Google. "We have stemmed the tide of people leaving us by working closely with Google and incorporating some of their functionality," Ron Grant, President and COO said.

But, one interesting feature is the unbundling of AOL, breaking down the components of various AOL services, sites and applications into handy bits that can fit into other web sites, including those not owned by Time Warner. This unbundling feature is at the heart of the new architecture of AOL.

"All of them [portals] can be dissambled," Grant said. "We're introducing this on a platform that can allow unbundling."

So, AOL is loosening the reins a bit to set free content (such as sports coverage) and applications that can be embedded throughout other sites. This unbundling approach is particularly relevant to AOL's international market, which the company hopes will also become another source of growth. AOL has big global expansion plans and is readying a push into Europe and Asia.

What AOL doesn't plan to do in the short-term is sell-off its domestic access business, a vestige of the days when AOL was a dial-up giant. Despite its switch-over to a free, ad-supported business model, the company still has nine million dial-up customers.

"We still have nine million very valuable customers who generate an enormous amount of page views for us," Falco said. "I think about it a lot but I think 'do I really want those nine million users in the hands of a third-party?'"

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on September 17, 2007 7:47 PM to IP Democracy