AOL name change: America IS Online now, after all

Posted Apr 3rd 2006 6:05PM by Sarah Gilbert
Filed under: Products and Services, Law, Time Warner (TWX)

America is all Online now, right? TimeWarner says that its division, American Online, has now accomplished its eponymous mission and managed to get America, from purple mountains to fruited plains, on the Internet. Thus the division is changing its name officially to "AOL LLC."

The "LLC" organization will reflect the 5% stake Google purchased last week.

According to an email sent to all employees (including yours truly), "consumers already know us by our initials and believe that AOL stands for a more contemporary Internet company." I can't imagine this news will have much of an impact on the consumer experience -- I mean, when was the last time you said "America Online"? -- but it's interesting to hear the rationale behind it.

(And, as an aside, this news comes at about the same time the company rolls out all new business cards for its AOL employees - they're pretty and vertical and so much better than the old ones. I wonder if there's any correlation between vertically-oriented business cards and stock price?)

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