CEO Interview: Tim Armstrong On AOL's Turnaround

NEW YORK – A lot has changed at AOL as it tries to shed the vestiges of its '90s image: the iconic "You've got mail" greeting and the promotional CDs stuffed into mailboxes across the country.

The company has engaged in an artsy rebranding, rolled out hundreds of local news sites and bought the online news hub The Huffington Post for $315 million.

At the helm is CEO Tim Armstrong, whom AOL hired from Google to stage a turnaround.

Armstrong has led AOL since April 2009. He oversaw its separation from Time Warner Inc. and debut as a publicly traded company eight months later.

All the while, he has tried to hone AOL's focus on online content and advertising — a tricky task for a company with roots as a dial-up Internet access provider.

That transition began well before Armstrong's arrival. Yet despite Armstrong's experience as Google's advertising chief for North and South America, AOL still struggles. Its online ad revenue fell last year and so far this year, despite an improving market.

Still, by doing such things as cutting the number of employees, shedding less-profitable websites and purchasing new ones such as The Huffington Post, Armstrong is optimistic that AOL can succeed.

The Associated Press recently sat down with Armstrong, 40, at the company's headquarters in New York's East Village. He talked about why he wanted to lead AOL and how it's going so far.