It's conceivable that AOL will one day be a profitable business -- just don't expect that day to come anytime soon. No, due to continued weakness in search and contextual advertising, AOL said in
10-K filing released this week that it expects ad revenues on its own properties, as well as its third-party networks to "decline significantly."
As PaidContent notes: "The hope has
been that its string of acquisitions -- most recently and notably the $315 million it paid for The Huffington Post -- will help turn things around at some point this year." Arguably, AOL's problem is
just how much it still depends on subscription revenue.
In 2010, 53% of the company's revenue came from advertising, compared to 54% the year before. Meanwhile, subscription dollars
made up 42% of AOL's total revenues in 2010, while 5% came from "other," which includes fees related to mobile e-mail and instant messaging and licensing of Mapquest.
Read the whole story at Paid Content »