It has plenty of issues to deal with among its vast array of enterprises. This includes: the film and TV production division Warner Bros. Entertainment, Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema; its Turner Broadcasting unit that oversees cable channels TBS, TNT, and the Cartoon Network; pay-TV channels HBO and Cinemax; and the masthead Time Inc., the top consumer magazine publisher with such titles as Fortune, People, and Time.

Time Warner has struggled to mesh its media empire with AOL in a way that would add meaningfully to the bottom line, so AOL is being set free. All parties have high hopes to achieve greater value separately than they have been able to achieve as a united entity.

For TWX, the break will give it one less struggling enterprise to deal with. The shrinking of print media has been a very slippery slope and TWX (and others) have not been able to grab a foothold anywhere as advertising revenue moves to other mediums. All media companies are struggling, both on and off the web. The economy has exaggerated these difficulties, but the primary reason every media company is hurting is the ease at which everything is being diluted. New channels of communications and entertainment are appearing so fast, on a daily basis, that it is impossible to make anything more than a guess as to where all this will end up, or if it will ever slow down.

This is where AOL is trying to set itself apart, and there are small signs that it might succeed and expand in the media and entertainment universe. From what I have observed in my three years of tenure, AOL has trended toward creating original content and this adds value and hopefully will add enough differentiation to be of financial benefit.

For example, the sports section no longer focuses on just reporting sports news but has shifted to more original editorial comment in the form of FANHOUSE. Bloggingstocks started out producing original editorial comment about the investment world from the beginning and it spawned the highly successful Walletpop, now identified independently on the welcome page index. The recently added Daily Finance banner is prominently displayed on the Money and Finance page and is extending its reach on a daily basis with its original content.

By creating so much original content and integrating highly respected commentators and journalists on our site and throughout the AOL "network", the clear hope is that we continue to be a major destination on the Internet.

While the internet universe will continue to expand and new stars will be created, AOL's goal is to remain the biggest and brightest star in that universe.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. Disclosure: I own shares of TWX.