• Variety , Thursday, December 7, 2006 11:01 AM

At the annual Credit Suisse media summit, Time Warner Chairman Dick Parsons said AOL is on the hunt for new Web partnerships that would help make the company's content stick better with Web users. The partnerships could be "almost anything you could think of other than the really big established portals."

Parsons expressed his satisfaction with AOL's development since this summer's business model overhaul. In August, the company left behind its hefty but declining business as an Internet Service Provider in order to focus on developing ad-supported content. Rather than look for new acquisitions, Parsons said AOL is "looking for horizontal opportunities" to beef up its content offerings.

Since August, AOL has scooped up Relegance, a financial-news search provider and GameDaily, a portal for video-game players. Many credit the recent upswing of Time Warner's stock to AOL's new strategy, though the company has bought back billions worth of stock to lift the new strategy. Now, after years of stagnancy, Time Warner's stock has risen 24% since August. At least for now, AOL won't be going anywhere, Parsons said.

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