Internet, Aol | featured news

AOL is near a deal to sell the Bebo social-networking site to Criterion Capital Partners for a fraction of the price it paid two years ago to buy it.

A few weeks ago, as Steve Case was flying above Sterling, en route to Dulles International Airport, he looked down and saw the sprawling campus that is home to the company he co-founded 25 years ago this month -- the pioneering service that took millions of people online for the first time. Marking its silver anniversary, the company looks to reclaim its standing among Internet giants.

Aol launched Lifestream, a social aggregator and publisher, as part of their AIM platform at TechCrunch50 Last Fall. Since then it has gained nearly 2 million users, say Aol. Based on that success Aol is now launching Lifestream as a standalone product at lifestream.aol.com.

AOL is currently in talks to acquire Mashable, the world's largest technology blog. A sale to the content-obsessed internet company would mean Mashable's 24-year-old founder Pete Cashmore really would have everything.

Just last week, Aol celebrated its re-emergence as an independently-traded company. But it's one main advantage is that it still commands a large audience, and in fact was the fourth largest Website in the U.S.—until last month. ComScore data for November, 2009 shows that Facebook surpassed Aol with 102.9 million unique visitors in the U.S., versus 99.7 million for Aol.

AOL is in talks to sell its ICQ instant-messaging service to Russian investment group Digital Sky Technologies, according to people familiar with the matter.

Today, AOL comes back on the NYSE following its spinoff from Time Warner (TMX) — and the one-time Web titan is marking the transition with a rebrand.
Gone is the blue AOL of old, replaced with goldfish, monsters, butterflies and the partially lower case “Aol” branding we previewed previously. These symbols represent themes on the site; pick one to change the color scheme and background.

AOL won't officially become an independently traded company again until December 10 when CEO Tim Armstrong is scheduled to ring the bell on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

In this edition of the Weekly Wrapup - our newsletter summarizing the top stories of the week - we analyze a list of the most influential websites in the world, look back on the past decade of e-commerce, suggest a list of products that Twitter might like to acquire, review a collection of Thanksgiving web apps, and more.

About 2,500 jobs will be lost after AOL is spun off from Time Warner next month.