Its sole product was an online service called GameLine for the Atari 2600 video game console, after von Meister's idea of buying music on demand was rejected by Warner Bros.[8] Subscribers bought a modem from the company for $49.95 and paid a one-time $15 setup fee.

The technical team consisted of Seriff, Tom Ralston, Ray Heinrich, Steve Trus, Ken Huntsman, Janet Hunter, Dave Brown, Craig Dykstra, Doug Coward, and Mike Ficco.

[10] Kimsey changed the company's strategy, and in 1985, launched a dedicated online service for Commodore 64 and 128 computers, originally called Quantum Link ("Q-Link" for short).

[12][13] Case promoted and sold AOL as the online service for people unfamiliar with computers, in contrast to CompuServe, which was well established in the technical community.

1991 also saw the introduction of an original Dungeons & Dragons title called Neverwinter Nights from Stormfront Studios, one of the first Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games to depict the adventure with graphics instead of text.

In 1995, AOL was headquartered at 8619 Westwood Center Drive in the Tysons Corner CDP in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia,[24][25] near the Town of Vienna.

This value fell sharply, to as low as $120 billion, as markets repriced AOL's valuation as a pure internet firm more modestly when combined with the traditional media and cable business.

[43] The change from paid to free access was also designed to slow the rate at which members canceled their accounts and defected to Microsoft Hotmail, Yahoo!

[55] On September 17, 2007, AOL announced the relocation of one of its corporate headquarters from Dulles, Virginia to New York City[56][57] and the combination of its advertising units into a new subsidiary called Platform A.

Most compensation packages associated with the October 2007 layoffs included a minimum of 120 days of severance pay, 60 of which were offered in lieu of the 60-day advance notice requirement by provisions of the 1988 federal WARN Act.

[82] On February 28, 2012, AOL partnered with PBS to launch MAKERS, a digital documentary series focusing on high-achieving women in industries perceived as male-dominated such as war, comedy, space, business, Hollywood and politics.

[83][84][85] Subjects for MAKERS episodes have included Oprah Winfrey, Hillary Clinton, Sheryl Sandberg, Martha Stewart, Indra Nooyi, Lena Dunham and Ellen DeGeneres.

[95] On January 23, 2014, AOL acquired Gravity, a software startup that tracked users' online behavior and tailored ads and content based on their interests, for $83 million.

[98] This came days after AOL earned its first Primetime Emmy Award nomination and win for Park Bench with Steve Buscemi in the Outstanding Short Form Variety Series.

[99] Created and hosted by Tiffany Shlain, the series focused on humans' relationship with technology and featured episodes such as "The Future of Our Species", "Why We Love Robots" and "A Case for Optimism".

[103][104] On July 22, 2015, AOL received two News and Documentary Emmy nominations, one for MAKERS in the Outstanding Historical Programming category, and the other for True Trans With Laura Jane Grace, which documented the story of Laura Jane Grace, a transgender musician best known as the founder, lead singer, songwriter and guitarist of the punk rock band Against Me!, and her decision to come out publicly and overall transition experience.

[107] On October 1, 2015, Go90, a free ad-supported mobile video service aimed at young adult and teen viewers that Verizon owns and AOL oversees and operates, launched its content publicly after months of beta testing.

[108] On April 20, 2016, AOL acquired virtual reality studio RYOT to bring immersive 360 degree video and VR content to HuffPost's global audience across desktop, mobile, and apps.

[124] AOL offers a range of integrated products and properties including communication tools, mobile apps and services and subscription packages.

In order to return to profitability, AOL rapidly shifted its focus from content creation to advertising, resulting in less of a need to carefully moderate every forum and chat room to keep users willing to pay by the minute to remain connected.

[143] After unlimited access, AOL considered scrapping the program entirely, but continued it with a reduced number of community leaders, with scaled-back roles in creating content.

In response to approximately 300 consumer complaints, the New York Attorney General's office began an inquiry of AOL's customer service policies.

[citation needed] The investigation revealed that the company had an elaborate scheme for rewarding employees who purported to retain or "save" subscribers who had called to cancel their Internet service.

[148] On June 13, 2006, Vincent Ferrari documented his account cancellation phone call in a blog post,[149] stating he had switched to broadband years earlier.

[151] On August 3, 2006, Time Warner announced that the company would be dissolving AOL's retention centers due to its profits hinging on $1 billion in cost cuts.

[167] A website called Dearaol.com[168] was launched, with an online petition and a blog that garnered hundreds of signatures from people and organizations expressing their opposition to AOL's use of Goodmail.

"[169] Tim Lee of the Technology Liberation Front[170] posted an article that questioned the Electronic Frontier Foundation's adopting a confrontational posture when dealing with private companies.

[173] On August 4, 2006, AOL released a compressed text file on one of its websites containing 20 million search keywords for over 650,000 users over a three-month period between March 1 and May 31, 2006, intended for research purposes.

Derivative research, titled A Picture of Search[174] was published by authors Pass, Chowdhury and Torgeson for The First International Conference on Scalable Information Systems.

[182] Following media reports about PRISM, NSA's massive electronic surveillance program, in June 2013, several technology companies were identified as participants, including AOL.