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The Sinking Ship that is AOL
EyesWideOpen writes "This article at Salon discusses the ways in which AOL is trying to stay afloat, with the release of version 8.0 of it's software, in a time when AOL (which recently merged with Time Warner) has had a string of bad press -- falling stock prices, SEC investigation, etc. -- attached to it's name. One of my favorite quotes from the article says of AOL: ''It was never really an Internet company. AOL was based on the idea that people needed to live in a halfway house while they became accustomed to the Net.'...If folks can get a better, faster, cheaper online experience by ditching AOL, they'll do it in a heartbeat.'"
Bankruptcy!
Finally people realize......
"Good-bye"
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
The sinking ship that is Salon writing about the sinking ship that is AOL.
It was never really an Internet company.
That can't be right! The AOL tech I had helping me troubleshoot a cable-modem connection told me unequivocally that AOL is the Internet.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I thought AOL was based on the idea that people need a never-ending supply of drink coasters.
"...would even connect to it over our T1 connection." Isn't that valid grounds for dismissal? nam37
The two rules for success are:
1) Never tell them everything you know.
Yeah, jsmith893784@aol.com is really easy for people to remember and they don't want to lose that.
Does that mean that they will **finaly** stop sending me all those "new and improoved" CD's? Im gonna miss those coasters.
Live for the present, learn from the past, and dream of the future!
"They are great to get started, like diapers."
Are you insinuating that AOL users frequently piss themselves?
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
So I found her an (half the price) ISP, showed her how to do email, surf the web, etc.
One week later, "I'm switching back."
Reason?
It's not pretty . And she missed the voices .
I know!
I am obliged to mention that my SIL is not an idiot.
%s/it\'s/its/g
The possesive form "its" NEVER TAKES AN APOSTROPHE. It just doesn't. I know, it's a strange rule, sort of an exception, but it's the convention that literate folk have agreed on.
Every time you throw one of those in, it's like a speed bump on a freeway. The whole purpose of punctuation and grammatical convention in writing is to allow the most seamless transition possible from your head to the page/screen and thereupon the the reader's head. Don't keep flinging the typographical equivalent of ossified dog turds at the lawn mower of my mind.
OK, mod this down and get it over with.
In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
...50% of bandwidth going to ads, AOL is dying. Expect A0L to lose more ground over the coming months... considering their future next to cable and DSL access, for all intents and purposes AOL is dead.
I found him! The origional author of the '*BSD Is Dying' troll!
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Watch those AOL commercials and when you see old people and young kids with a smile on their face when they get mail it's cuz they know it's pron.
I suspet that the number of free hours given out by AOL accounts for millions of dollars each month in 'lost' revenue.
Does AOL Time Warner "lose" more revenue from free months of AOL service than it loses from piracy of Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema, and Warner Bros. Records products?
Will I retire or break 10K?
30 million users strong? It's about as dead as the French language.
Are you insinuating that AOL users frequently piss themselves?
No, I think (s)he was alluding to "what AOL is full of"
S
According to this news story about AOL CD collectors(???), unusual AOL CDs are now selling for more $$$ than AOL stock.
Be afraid.
The Pjammer Chronicles --
Hmph. REAL geeks remember to balance their parentheses.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
No matter how stupid people are, they don't like being called idiots.
"Only idiots use AOL..."
"well, i use AOL, and I like it, but johnny says only idiots use it, so I will try something else."
This isn't everyone, but quite a few people.
AOL serves a lot of people a very needed service, people that I don't want to have to deal with. I don't have the patience to be a teacher, or a tutor. If people need training wheels to feel comfortable, and I don't have to walk behind them holding them up, then stay on AOL.
I recommend AOL, Dell, and MS Windows to all the people that ask me to help them with "computers". It isn't that I am arrogant or pretentious. These people, generally my family, don't deserve me yelling at them, because I am frustrated with them not getting something I get intuitivly. I recommend the things I recomend because it saves on everyone's stress levels.
Support AOL, if for no other reason than my nerves. (And to keep MSN from market dominance)
MS: Get money from every man, woman and child in the world
AOL: Give every man, woman and child in the world a free 1.44 floppy.
MS: Control the internet
AOL: The internet? What's that.
MS: We own your mail.
AOL: You've got mail...uh....you had mail.
MS: Did we finally get rid of all the MSBOB references on the internet?
AOL: Release AOL V8.
Back in the days when I was an AOL tech support rep (shudder) we had this call tracking database that prompted up solutions for various problems encountered by the user base. It was some sort of knowledge base brain-sharing thing, forget what it was called, and everyone hated it anyway. We all had the ability to submit new call types and solutions. So on my last day there I entered a few in....
...beep... "Sorry, server's down, thank you for calling. Can I interest you in $20 worth of free gas?" ...beep... "Sorry, server's down, thank you for calling. Can I interest you in $20 worth of free gas?" ...beep... "No, you can't have your money back. Can I interest you in $20 worth of free gas?" ... beep... "Sorry, server's down, thank you for calling. Can I interest you in $20 worth of free gas?" ...beep...
This is one of them. For all I know it's still there.
.
.
.
Version: ALL PLATFORMS
Problem Type: Connection -- Modem Dialing
Topic: Other
Symptom: SERVERS DOWN. CALL QUEUE STATUS LIGHT IS SOLID UNWAVERING RED, AS IF 10 MILLION MEMBERS CRIED OUT AT ONCE -- THEN CALLED TECH SUPPORT
Resolution: ABANDON ALL HOPE, GIVE IN TO DESPAIR
Solution: "Sorry, server's down, thank you for calling. Can I interest you in $20 worth of free gas?"
.
.
.
My supervisor got a call from the QA team asking if that was supposed to be a joke or not, if you can believe it.
GMFTatsujin
I definitely plan to get my mother online via AOL...
...I have all aol.com addy's blocked.
But what about your poor mot...oh, I get it now.
...
... the Mom and Pop ISP user ducks under it.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
hey have huge customer service departments to answer questions when the like "how do I send a picture through e-mail"
...
Make use of this service. Have fun with it. Call AOL and say, "I want to send this girl pictures of me naked, but the files are too big." When they suggest scaling down the pictures, explain that they are in 1280x1024 resolutions so your "tool" will fit on the picture.
Sounds like a Crank Yankers episode. Try using one of those voices
Not if they like the idea of meeting teenagers online for sex. If that's their game, then AOL is the place to be.
My other first post is car post.
I haven't finished tiling my office with AOL CDs.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
I'd like to chat with some lemurs.
Is because I write "Return to Sender" on every CD they send to my house.
Yes, the founder of earthlink, Sky Dayton, is a scientologist, and there are lots of nutjob websites that make lots of unsupported claims, but no evidence that 10% of gross revenue goes to the CoS. In Q2 2002 Earthlink had gross revenues of $335m. Please show me who in the Earthlink management team received $33m, and then gave it to the CoS.
Someone could really make a movie out of that...
maybe with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks...
Maybe they could have AOL throw some money at it too... call it something catchy like... You've got mail
nah, it would never work.
Fix Your Own TV - RiddledTV.com Avoid the Landfill