Questions have been raised about the transformation plans of Time Warner's internet division AOL, following a noticeable slowdown in advertising growth.Despite AOL chiefs suggesting that the situation will be temporary, chief executive of Time Warner Richard Parsons has said that he does not expect the company's ad growth to match overall online advertising growth rates.
Furthermore, Jordan Rohan, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, told the New York Times that AOL is currently battling social networking sites MySpace and Facebook, among others, for audiences and advertising money, companies he described as "tough competitors".
The newspaper reports that the current situation in which AOL finds itself highlights a decline in power for some of the mass market portals, as advertising continues to move from offline media to the internet at a fast rate.
In response, AOL chief executive Randy Falco said: "The brand that we build around Advertising.com might become more important than the AOL brand itself.
"In the first six months of the year, we have accomplished more in terms of a turnaround, in terms of fixing products and the platform, than in the past three years."
In an interview with the Financial Times, he attributed the decline in display advertising growth to the company's focus on its finance, news, music and health content.
He also suggested that one of AOL's four main objectives is to build a better ad-serving platform.
