• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, February 7, 2008

AOL used to be known as an acronym that stood for America Online. How quaint. Soon it could change its initials to AOM for Anywhere On Mobile. In a deal announced this morning, the Time Warner interactive media unit said it would begin working with mobile entertainment and community developer Zed to introduce mobile services in the U.S. and Europe. The applications will be promoted on both companies’ Internet sites, with AOL’s WAP portal in the U.S. and via AOL’s desktop applications in Europe.

The deal is part of a broader distributed content play for AOL, which began as an online destination â€" indeed, a point of online access â€" and now is looking to spread its content, advertising and brand name everywhere and anywhere it can go, including the kind of on-the-go applications that are unique to mobile platforms.

AOL’s WAP portal already offers a rich array of mobile applications tied to trademark AOL services such as AIM, AOL Mail, AOL Search, ICQ, MapQuest, Moviefone and Winamp.