“To build a global medium as central to people’s lives as the telephone or the television…and even more valuable”

This is a bold mission statement. But it is the mission we at America Online rededicate ourselves to every day. From our very beginnings, AOL has been about far more than just making the Internet available to consumers. It has been about making our members’ lives better by creating an online experience that helps, informs, and delights them.

This commitment to our members drives everything we do. We created unique channel navigation and an improved Search feature – with audio/video and local Search – to make finding things online faster and easier. We offer comprehensive programming experiences, packed with original content. We have been pioneers in making online communications easy and fun. We led the way in protecting our members from spam, viruses, hackers and other dangers.

And we continue to refine, add and improve on features important to our members. Our instant messaging service, for example, now features video messaging and animated SuperBuddy™ icons that add a new level of fun to online communications. We created unique services for kids and teens – called KOL and RED – with state-of-the-art parental controls to give parents greater peace of mind. We launched AOL for Broadband, the first online service specifically created for members with high-speed connections. We built AOL Bill Pay and inStore from the ground up for the way our members actually pay bills and shop online. Now we are pushing our service beyond the PC to wireless devices because our members want on-the-go access to the AOL service.

We do all these things and much more because at AOL, we are dedicated to the simple premise that our members deserve the best possible – and most valuable – online experience available anywhere.