Ted Leonsis, the vice-chairman of AOL, will relinquish active management in favor of a “visionary” role in the company on New Year’s Day, 2007.
Miller waxed effusively about Leonsis in recounting his accomplishments at AOL:
“Ted Leonsis helped build AOL, not once, but twice,” said Jon Miller. “The first time was in the 1990s, when Ted and AOL literally helped get America online. A second time began in 2002, with Ted as the driving force behind AOL’s dramatic shift from a dial-up ISP to a Web services business.
“In the 2nd Quarter of 2006, AOL’s advertising revenue grew by 40% — and it is this business for which Ted’s been most responsible,” said Miller.
“I love AOL, and I am so proud of what we’ve done. I think I’m most proud of what we’ve accomplished in the past two years, growing our Audience business and driving it to become the future of AOL,” Leonsis said.
“AOL is in great hands, and it is absolutely on the right path. I look forward to working with Jon Miller and all of my friends and colleagues at AOL, but in a new and different way.”
That ad revenue represents the path first discussed in July by Miller, when Wall Street began to buzz with rumors that AOL would shift its subscription-based content to an audience-driven, ad-supported model.
Since that time, AOL has made its services available for free to broadband users. The latest step in bringing more users to AOL was unveiled when they debuted the My eAddress service. This provides a free .com or .net domain registration and up to 100 email addresses for those who sign up for it.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
