Everybody acts like social media and social networking is a new development, but it really isn’t. Even 15 years ago there was a web service that enabled you to create profiles, connect with friends, engage with communities, and communicate instantly or asynchronously. It was called Aol, and there’s a good chance that you used it. I feel bad for Aol. They had it all. They were the behemoth of the social web before anyone knew what the social web was, but they were too big and not agile enough. They continued to act like an ISP, and their market share eroded as people transitioned to high-speed connections. Today most people think of Aol as irrelevant, but the NYC based company is doing their best to make a comeback. The good news is that they aren’t living in the past. They’re not trying to win at social networking or being an ISP—they’ve repositioned. They now describe themselves as “a leading-edge web services company, with an offering of premium and niche content sites, world-class tools and platforms.” The focus is on content, and in some ways that’s what Aol was always about—making great content easy to access for the masses. The tough thing for Aol is that they’re already a huge company, so they’re going to have to swing for the fences if they want their new business model to work.

You’ve Got Mail!

The only reason that I actually decided to feature Aol today was because they have an amazing internship contest going on right now. It’s focused on their new Lifestream service which aggregates all of your social profiles in one place (apparently Aol hasn’t completely given up on social networking, but I think that they probably should). It’s not your typical internship, so it might even be a temporary replacement for an entry level job. It’s paid, you get direct access to Aol’s CEO Tim Armstrong, and you get some serious responsibility. Oh yeah, and the most important thing is that your main duty is to live an awesome life and share it through Lifestream. The only downside is that only one person can get it. You can find all of the details here. After looking at that opportunity, I decided to hit up Aol’s Career site and look through their job openings. I was shocked to see that Aol currently has 749 vacancies! Obviously I don’t have 3 days to browse through all of those jobs and pick out the entry level jobs for you, but you should note that they have all kinds of opportunities ranging from Software/Web Development to Journalism/Editorial/Writing to Advertising to Sales. Aol is making a huge play to be relevant again, and if they’re going to do it, they need top talent. You’ll probably have to narrow down your searches to make Aol’s job listings a bit more manageable, but you should be able to find something that suits your interests—they even have opportunities all across the country.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

• Aol.com
• Aol Corporate Site
• Jobs at Aol
• About Aol
• Leadership at Aol
• Aol Products and Services
• Aol News
• Aol’s Values
• Aol’s Investor Relations Site

What do you think about the new Aol?

We've identified Aol as having career opportunities in the following categories:

• account management
• advertising
• all employers
• blogging
• California
• editing
• editorial
• interactive media
• journalism
• marketing
• nationwide
• New York
• online media
• sales
• social media
• social networking
• software development
• web development
• writing

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Jobs Near You

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2 responses to “Aol”

1. Jenny says:

   June 5, 2010 at 2:54 am

   Yeah, it’s amazing how people continue to scoff at Aol and talk about its irrelevance (relying solely on their memories of its ISP days), but don’t realize that the company owns and runs the following popular sites: Engadget, TMZ, Moviefone, Joystiq, etc.

   Reply
2. Jenny says:

   June 5, 2010 at 3:02 am

   Correction: TMZ remained w/ Time Warner in the fall ’09 split. But my point still stands.

   Reply