As AOL prepares spin off from Time Warner, it has set its sights on becoming the market leader in display, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
AOL CEO Tim Armstrong said the company will also work to become one of the largest online publishers by producing more websites and video.
AOL is picking a tough time to go after the display market. Spending on display is estimated to fall 17 percent this year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Meanwhile, AOL's ad revenue for the first quarter was down 20 percent year-over-year, and the company still trails Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft in terms of traffic. Most of AOL's profit still comes from its internet-access business, which brought in $1.9 billion in revenue in 2008.
A big piece of the newly single AOL's strategy is BidPlace, a technology that lets advertisers bid to buy ads across a network of AOL sites. In May, 91 percent of all Americans online saw an ad within that network, according to the Journal.
