To succeed, America Online's new AOL.com portal launch - a big part of its move away from a subscriber-based revenue model to an ad-supported one - must meet the needs of not only users but also advertisers, and for now it seems to be on the right track with media buyers, ClickZ writes, having polled various players in the industry. Still, AOL will be playing with established portal players like MSN and Yahoo, and also having to contend with Google's recent portal efforts. To do just that, AOL is focusing on broadband content - both newly created and the huge archive of licensed and original content it has amassed within AOL.

That content is contained in properties like Moviefone and AOL Music. The company would likely gain access to content from other Time Warner companies, including HBO, CNN and Warner Music. "Ad budgets will follow content and audience - AOL will have both," ClickZ quotes Alan Schanzer, Managing Partner of WPP's MEC Interaction, as saying. A key to user and advertiser success will be leveraging the content and audience reach of other AOL properties to drive traffic.

Throughout the development of the new portal, AOL has made it a point to engage advertisers. Its efforts to listen to advertising constituents, through agency and client advisory boards, have won praise. "Our goal is to bring in new unique visitors, re-circulate those visitors within the network, and monetize those unique visitors through advertising, search, e-commerce and subscription services," said David Liu, general manager of AOL.com.