In an interesting interview with the Sunday Telegraph (UK), AOL chief executive Jonathan Miller openly muses about the eventual separation of AOL from the Time Warner media empire. Having sold its European broadband businesses in the UK, Germany and France, Time Warner intends to focus AOL's energies on providing email, web search and instant messenger services.

The article states that the Time Warner board is actively considering selling AOL to the highest bidder quoting Miller saying, "It's possible, going forward. It's not a discussion that Time Warner has a problem with understanding or engaging in. Until we were on this present course, it wasn't even the right discussion. Now it becomes more interesting."

AOL is likely going to cease operating as a separate entity. Miller notes a rival would almost certainly purchase AOL. "I don't believe there is a scenario whereby we could have an independent AOL. I think we would be bought as fast as we could draw up the papers," he is quoted saying.

This is not the first time AOL has put itself in play. Around this time last year, AOL played the Big3 off against each other in a

legendary bidding war eventually won by Google. The $1 billion advertising deal Google signed with AOL in January of this year makes them the odd-on favourite in the purchase sweepstakes. That inside edge doesn't necessarily mean Google has an AOL acquisition in the bag.

At stake is one of the oldest brand names on the Internet with a registered membership of over 200 million users. AOL drives a great deal of search traffic and search advertising, reporting revenues of $8.3 billion in 2005. Though often dismissed as flakey by old-time webmasters and dispised for sending hundreds of millions of free-membership discs through the mail, AOL is a brand worth billions. It could provide the boost needed for Yahoo, Microsoft or Ask to challenge Google. On the other hand, it could also provide the bludgeon Google needs to further terminate competition.

Time Warner is one of the largest, most serious blue-chip corporate entities in the world. Their experience with AOL might be seen as an embarassing era in the mega-publisher's history and Time Warner's board of directors needs to extract the maximum benefit from AOL to survive a continuing challenge from major shareholder Carl Ichan.

This story can only get more interesting in the coming days.