I don't know enough of the facts to form my own opinion. The only thing i'll say about AOL is that i just don't see how they will ever grow their audience again. It just imposible to me...unless they begin buying up hot, new properties that together can offer a better online experience. Seems to me though that Yahoo is the one doing this.

I know AOL dosn't have the market share they once had, but don't they still have a very very large percentage?

Far too large IMHO
(Compared to the actual value theyre bringing to the net)

AOL has a chance for a second coming if they successfully leverage the AIM platform like the article below suggests...

"...the online giant is building a platform off its massively popular AOL Instant Messenger service to better enable its users to share and create content. That the internal shorthand for the project is "AIMspace" -- don't count on that being its real name -- testifies to how tightly the company plans to tie it to AIM, which the company says has 43 million users."

continued at... http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_05/b3969023.htm