You’ve got mail.

Goodbye.

Today, AOL officially spins off from TimeWarner as an independent company, the last remnant of a merger originally announced in 2000, where the company was briefly known as AOL Time Warner.  AOL had 30 million subscribers at its peek, when they were the leader in online access.

Here is a brief history of AOL, known at its peak as America Online.

1980s: Control Video Corporation is founded.  Its sole product is Gameline, which allows users to download game to Atari video game systems, using a modem built into a cartridge.  Games are $1 rentals which expired after multiple plays or when the console was shut off.  The company also pitched music downloads to cable TV boxes, but it was rejected by the music labels.  Namely Warner Music.

1983: Future CEO Steve Case joined the company, near bankruptcy, which was reorganized under new management

1985: Company is renamed Quantum Computer Services.  Launch online network for Commodore 64 and 128 computers called Quantum Link (Q-Link for short).

1988: AppleLink is created as a joint venture with Apple for Macintosh computers.  PC Link is launched for PCs.

1989: Joint venture with Apple ends.  Service and company is renamed America Online.

1996: AOL institutes a $19.99 unlimited access rate.  Membership explodes.

2000: AOL announces a merger with Time Warner.  The new company, finalized in 2001 was called AOL Time Warner.

2003: AOL Time Warner removes AOL from its name, returning to the Time Warner name.  AOL remains a division of the company.

2009: Time Warner spins off AOL into a separate company, officially ending the relationship caused by the merger.

Gary’s success is completely deserved.  An immigrant from the former U.S.S.R. republic now known as Belarus, he uses social media, centered around a daily video show, to transform his family’s wine store in New Jersey from a $1 million dollar business to roughly $50 million in annual sales.

However, this post is not centered around his financial success.  Many successful businesses have made more than him, with or without the use of social media.  The most astounding success of Gary Vaynerchuk is how rich and powerful the results for him are on Google and other popular search engines.  This is why I have declared Gary Vaynerchuk the King of SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

I consult businesses on how to utilize social media and other internet marketing to their advantage.  I happened to be in a fairly large wine store in New York City, talking about Vaynerchuk’s unprecedented success.  They were very aware of him, and clearly not fans.  These people shared with me the belief that Wine Library hurts their sales, because they are located in New Jersey, and have lower taxes on win than they do in New York.  The belief, if you believe these people, is that any and all tactics used by Gary Vaynerchuk to sell wine are frowned upon by the rest of the wine community, and wouldn’t be caught dead using anything that made him a household name.  Videoblogs?  Facebook?  Having personal relationships with customers?  Sorry.

This was an education I did not expect.  Gary Vee has enemies.  He has controversy.  I immediately went home and did some Google searching to dig up this alleged dirt.  However, to my shock, I would not find anything remotely negative about him at all.  There was nothing about undercutting wine prices using interstate loopholes.  Nothing was written about people having bad experiences with him personally or with his products.  I was looking for content that was quite specific, expecting a certain result, yet all I found was his official websites, videos and positive things about him.  Wow.

I then did use a search term that was bound to bring up something bad.  That term:

“Fuck Gary Vaynerchuk”

Back when I originally did this search in January, I found a blog post criticizing Vaynerchuk’s own post criticizing Howard Stern. Here in September, I can no longer find it.  All that is listed is some Howard Stern message board discussing the topic, and how it was out of context on Stern’s part.  Five results from the same thread.  That’s it!

The post in question criticized Vaynerchuk.  However, he left a comment on the post.  That led to a follow-up post respecting him.  Gary Vaynerchuk listens to all feedback, positive and negative, and responds to it.  That creates a level of authenticity, something that Google and the other search engines value when determining who should be on the top of the results page.

How do you respond to feedback?  How active are YOU, the owner of your business, in sharing with the community?  Please respond in the comments.