Has AOL Lost Its Sex Drive?

TheViewFromTheGround writes "Why have the years since the merger with Time Warner been so hard on America Online? Michael Wolff, a consultant who advised Time Warner not to buy AOL in the early 90's, says that the the big problem is Time Warner's denial of AOL's core value: a monopoly on dirty chat. The argument says that AOL was successful because they had a critical mass of people and that it skillfully marketed talking dirty by appearing to be family friendly. Now, the old media bedfellow is pushing AOL to stop its pimping ways."

Comments

Puritans!

[kitzilla]

Damn! They're taking away the last good thing about AOL. ;-)

ummm

[goon america]

Now, the old media bedfellow is pushing AOL to stop its pimping ways.

Couldn't this have been worded better?

$23.95/month is pretty cheap

[vasqzr]

Compared to paying $2.99 a minute for a 976 number

A/S/L?

[Rocky]

Well?

Re:A/S/L?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Slashdot.

The answer to that question is almost always...

20's Male, Mom's Basement.

How could AOL loose it's sex drive?

[mhesseltine]

Have you seen the number of Penis increasing emails in the average AOL user's mailbox? These people should have the libido of a rabbit on ecstacy.

What are they going to do?

[Hanna's Goblin Toys]

Put word filters on AIM? That just means the 13 year old punks are going to have to start AIM'ing me with "U R SOFA KING WE TODD DID"

Re:What are they going to do?

[The Evil Couch]

why's everyone got to pick on the furniture? what the hell did we do to you?

Is a sex drive

[cxreg]

like this? If only I knew that AOL came with one of those before!

Typical AOL chat room conversation..

[LordYUK]

400 pound 40 year old bald man AKA SexxyStud91134: A/S/L???
400 pound acne ridden 38 year old balding woman AKA HotMomma92394848: 18/f/Miami u?
SS: 19/M/Denver.
HM: Sounds good, what you look like?
SS: I am 6'5, 250 pounds of tight muscle. u?
HM: 5'5 petite brown hair.

(uploads random amateur porn star jpeg to each other and proceeds to cyber)

Yeah, you know I'm right. And btw, I hate you HotMamma92394848 for ruining my dreams of AOL women!!!

Re:Chat rooms are what made AOL great...

[MrLint]

No wonder why all the lusers that got onto irc from AOL had such bad potty mouths.

You're wrong...

[Izang]

HotMomma92394848 is also a 400 pound 40 year old bald man.

Re:Here's My Rant about "Safe Communities"

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Denis Leary, is that you?

dirty chat is why I keep my AOL

[budcub]

I got AOL and an ISP account at the same time, in December 1995, and I've kept both. Why? Because I can hook up and get laid from AOL chat rooms, while on IRC I'd only meet freaks. That's a generalization, but its true. I've met mostly freaks on IRC while on AOL I'm much more likely to meet a regular person. Also, they have a "bring your own access" plan, where you pay a much lower fee each month, and access them through TCP/IP and an ISP. Its much faster than dialing up anyways.

Ever since I've been on, AOL has monitored the language of chat rooms, which is pretty damn annoying, but it explains why you go into a room and no one says anything, we're all IM-ing each other.

Does anyone remember when you get get real porn from AOL picture galleries? It was sometime in the early 90's. When they decided to go "family friendly" they first blacked out all the genital areas, then got rid of the nudie galleries all together.

well,

[FakePlasticDubya]

not only was the sex drive lost, the whole array went down.

Welcome to the internet...

[Ryan Amos]

where the men are men, the women are men, and the boys are FBI agents.