I doubt this is good news. But kudos to the owners.
It can turn out as good news.
AOL is now owned by Verizon and they have a treasure trove of unmatched data (still unused). They have real names, the most accurate location data (because of the way cell phones work), credit card info and all the internet traffic goes through their network (and more than 100 million US customers).
AOL has the ad tech stack, they also acquired a lot of companies which added video and apps to their portfolio. Also recently AOL got the deal to sell all Microsoft (MSN, Skype, Outlook and etc.) display inventory (in the main 9 countries). They may also get some search data from Bing to use as customer intent. Their only weak point to become an advertising powerhouse was mobile. With Millenial Media (which acquired Jumptap) they fixed that. They are heading to become the 3rd biggest digital advertising player behind Google and Facebook.
It is about time Google and to a lesser extent Facebook get some serious competition. We as marketers should win from this top level competition.