1980 to 1989: The Rise of Personal Computers and Personal Software - The Technical and Social History of Software Engineering - page 181

founder, the newly named America Online began the service that later made it
famous: a network that was graphically based, easy to use, and provided rich and
varied content to subscribers.
AOL as a corporation was a pioneer in both emails and social groups, which
later became known as “social networks.”
At its peak in around 1995, AOL had about 10 million members. However,
AOL charged for email and other services ($19.95 per month) at a time when free
email services were starting to appear. Also, response time and even access were
often sluggish, leading to customer dissatisfaction and departures.
AOL also had an erratic history as a corporation with both ups and downs,
mergers, divestitures, and other corporate changes. Between 2000 and 2009, AOL
was owned by Time Warner Corporation, an arrangement that apparently satisfied
neither side. AOL was spun off into a separate company in December 2009.
As other social networks and email services eroded AOL's key business, it was
necessary to change directions. The new strategy, which thus far seems to be help-
ing, is to concentrate on “content” as opposed to the network and network services.
For example, AOL acquired the Huffington Post and MapQuest.
In April 2012, the Huffington Post won a Pulitzer Prize, becoming the first on-
line journal to do so. David Wood was the reporter who won the prize based on his
series about the postwar experiences of U.S. soldiers back from Afghanistan and
Iraq.
AOL also began a push for generating revenues via online advertising. AOL
continues to experiment with content and ads, which will hopefully keep it profit-
able.
Avira
Avira is a successful antivirus company that was founded in Tettnang, Germany, in
1986. Avira currently has about 100 million customers and is a major player in the
antivirus industry. Avira is one of a number of companies that have an interesting
business model. Avira provides a basic antivirus package for free but also offers
more sophisticated versions for a fee.
As with many specialized niche industries, the antivirus world has frequent re-
views and rankings of relative performance. Avira normally gets good reviews.