The old giant that once ruled the Internet age is still struggling. AOL was able to increase advertising sales in the second quarter of 2011, first time that has happened in about three years. Unfortunately, that was not enough to stop the slide that has occurred mainly because subscribers are not renewing AOL web-access subscription services which generate more revenue for it. Based on that, investors punished the stock.
AOL stock went down to $10.06 but has since recovered to about $11.78. Of course the general market is downbeat owing to the U.S. credit downgrade and the Euro sovereign debts. After they announced a reduced annual earnings forecast along with this loss dominated by the erosion of paid members in their services, AOL is seeing a new stock price it has never seen since it was spun off from Time Warner in 2009. That $10.06 was a new low for the old giant.
The company recently bought Huffington Post, TechCrunch and continues to expand its Patch hyperlocal news sites as it hopes to bring advertisers with better and expanded online continent. They need to do that fast because if they hope to save the job of Tim Armstrong, AOL CEO, that has to happen quickly.
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