America Online, Inc. Acquires When.com
April 5, 1999 10:47 AM
DULLES, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 5, 1999 --
Acquisition of Leading Calendar Service and Technology Enhances Member Experience, Builds Community and Offers New E-Commerce Opportunities
America Online, Inc. AOL , the world's leading interactive services company, today announced its acquisition of When Inc., known as When.com, a leading provider of free Internet calendaring and event services.
The Company said it completed the acquisition for an undisclosed amount of stock.
When.com's award-winning, easy-to-use calendar will further improve AOL members' ability to customize their interactive experience by allowing them to enter their appointments and key dates and to track public events that they're interested in, such as movie openings, sporting events, album releases, concerts and other cultural activities.
Once a person enters his or her personal interests, events in these areas, drawn from a database of more than 750,000 listings, are automatically added to the personalized calendar, providing timely alerts as well as opportunities to purchase tickets and merchandise related to those events.
America Online said that it will continue to develop When.com's technology and plans to launch a new, re-branded calendar this summer. The Company also said it will enhance When.com's group calendars which allow, for example, members of a particular organization, club or community to share the same calendar and information.
In addition, the Company said that it plans to develop an integrated client so members can access and work with their calendar without the need to be online.
AOL plans to make the calendar available across the Company's family of brands. Netscape and When.com launched a co-branded calendar on Netscape Netcenter in January 1999.
"Once individuals and groups begin to use When.com's calendar to schedule and share their personal events, being online will become an even more important part of people's daily lives," said Bob Pittman, President and Chief Operating Officer of America Online, Inc. "When.com's calendar is the perfect personalization tool to help build community and to connect shopping opportunities with a person's individual interests and community events. The calendar will allow us to further expand our electronic commerce offerings by helping partners and advertisers target purchasing opportunities around key events in people's lives, such as birthdays, anniversaries and other important dates that people store on their calendar."
Barry Schuler, President of America Online's Interactive Services Group, said: "The calendar is not only a great convenience feature but a more intuitive way to receive and exchange information. Online calendars will become virtual community centers where you will be able to find out when the next baseball game is scheduled and where the movie you've heard about is opening in your area. We're excited that When.com's talented team is joining AOL to help us develop new features, programming and content for the calendar and related areas."
When.com President and CEO Ted Barnett said: "We're very excited to join America Online, where millions of people will be able to use our calendar to make their lives easier and more rewarding. With its focus on community, AOL has led the way in providing tools to enable its members to share their experiences. We look forward to continuing to develop our service with AOL's resources and branding expertise squarely behind us."
About When.com
When.com, located in Redwood City, California, is a free Internet calendaring service that delivers personalized, comprehensive event information from leading content partners enabling anyone online to integrate this information directly into a personal or group calendar and act on it immediately.
Providing a choice from more than 750,000 premium events in 12 key consumer categories, When.com automatically tracks and notifies consumers of event content based on personal preferences. Founded in 1998, When.com was privately held and venture-backed by 21st Century Internet Venture Partners and Benchmark Capital.
About America Online
Founded in 1985, America Online, Inc., based in Dulles, Virginia, is the world's leader in interactive services, Web brands, Internet technologies, and e-commerce services. America Online, Inc. operates: two worldwide Internet services, America Online, with more than 16 million members, and CompuServe, with approximately 2 million members; several leading Internet brands including ICQ and Digital City, Inc.; the Netscape Netcenter and AOL.COM portals; and the Netscape Navigator and Communicator browsers.
Through its strategic alliance with Sun Microsystems, the Company develops and offers easy-to-deploy, end-to-end e-commerce and enterprise solutions for companies operating in the Net Economy.
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