Anyone that grew up in the 80's remembers teen flick after teen flick that went something like this. Misunderstood girl (or boy) is a loner, not at all popular. Then one day, the most popular boy (or girl) in school ends up spending a bit of time with them and discovers the something special within. Viola! All of a sudden, everyone sees this something special, some hilarity ensues as multiple suitors jockey for position and we then have a fairy tale ending. For some reason, that's the scenario that keeps running through my mind as I read about all the suitors suddenly attracted to AOL.

Long viewed as "training wheels for the Internet" by savvy Internet users, AOL has suddenly become the most popular girl in school. As with those 80's movies, once word got out that Microsoft was thinking of a partnership, Yahoo! and Google jumped on the bandwagon. This gives AOL its choice of dance partners, though the final outcome remains to be seen.

There was an article this weekend in the Washington Post (" Yahoo Adds Its Name to AOL's Full Dance Card") that gave a pretty good overview of the situation. A few snippets:

The jockeying by suitors marks another sharp turn in AOL's fortunes. In the late 1990s, AOL was the top online gateway for Americans getting acquainted with the Internet. But as speedy broadband service became more popular than AOL's slower dial-up access, AOL began losing subscribers, and within a few years of its 2001 merger with Time Warner, the service was widely viewed as a dinosaur.

But AOL still commands a large customer base and is refashioning itself as a free site instead of one that charges for access. The newly intense interest in the Internet service provider began after Microsoft proposed that its MSN search engine replace Google on AOL. In addition, Microsoft would put cash into the deal and combine its MSN service with America Online.

also:

"A lot of these companies look at AOL as an entity that has huge traffic, a substantial number of users, a fair amount of subscribers and access to unique and differentiated content and services," Kessler said. "Right now, it is very prized real estate when it comes to the Internet, particularly because its valuation may be depressed since it is in the midst of an ongoing turnaround, and part of a large conglomerate."