In its latest reinvention, AOL is opening up much of its content and services to the outside world in the hope of earning a bigger piece of the expanding online-advertising pie, a key goal for the Time Warner unit as its subscriber numbers continue to decline.

AOL has finally realised that if it is to grow then they need to get a slice of the online advertising market, this can be very lucrative.
Creating a whole new portal to achieve this is a bold move but the potential returns justifies the excersize.

After years as the Time Warner problem child, AOL sees an opening in the market. Thanks to its trove of Time Warner media content, it is betting it can transform itself from primarily a dial up Internet service provider to a video and audio saturated destination in a broadband enabled world. There is a huge leg up for AOL there, said Jeff Lanctot, vp of media at aQuantives Avenue ARazorfish, which places $300 million worth of Internet media annually. If contents still king, AOLs going to ride in on a horse called Time Warner and lay claim to the throne.

Yahoo News Report Continue reading this report on how AOL intends to make its content pay.