Time Warner to Split up AOL

Time Warner’s been playing with AOL a lot lately. They’ve been buying up social web products like SocialThing!, buy.at, and Bebo, and now according to the Wall Street Journal, they’re looking at splitting off the dial-up access side from the advertising and content side.

The only reason I actually knew that AOL was even still around and surviving (I almost typed thriving, but who’s to say it is?) is because a good friend of mine, Carly Milne, writes for their travel channel.

WSJ claims that

Despite having been in decline for several years, the business is still profitable and generates a predictable stream of cash. It serves 8.7 million subscribers, while EarthLink, the second-biggest dial-up service, serves 3.3 million, including broadband and Web-hosting subscribers. [source]

I’m stunned there’s still that many people on dial up. I did a statistics search and couldn’t find any real concrete numbers on dial up users. The only place I can recall having dial up in the past several years was in Cuba. Now, I will grant you that I haven’t been to Africa, or South America, but I’m willing to bet that there’s a large portion of both continents on broadband.