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AOL Plans to Offer Free Webmail
UltimaGuy writes "AOL plans to offer a free webmail service to compete directly with Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail. Does this mean AOL is trying to become something which it is not?"
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Does this mean AOL is trying to become something which it is not?
Conversely I think AOL is trying to enforce what it is: a portal to their own services and the internet. Once a user is using AOL's mail package then AOL can put whatever it wants on their mail webpage much like MS does with Hotmail. "Want to chat with Britney and Justin? Join AOL for $FOO and be here Saturday night!"
AOL is a business, businesses don't do "free" without some catch. Their free mail offering is nothing more than a hook to get the AOL brandname back into peoples' minds.
Trolling is a art,
It's not what it was. When they are hemorrhaging so many users a month, they are no longer succeeding at being an ISP. Looks like they are branching out to see if something else works. Like Apple trying out the iPod "experiment".:Their Newton experiment didn't work too well, but this one by golly seems to be paying off.
However, I don't see this helping AOL that much. I don't think that the webmail field is all that lucrative, and it is very crowded with competitors (even including Hotmail) getting better.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
it's the year 2008... and AOL's bankrupt!
Time Warner would have to spin off AOL first for that to happen.
Seriously though, how does AOL expect to compete?
As a loss leader perhaps, in the same way as Microsoft Xbox?
Does this mean AOL is trying to become something which it is not?
I think it would be good for most people to become something which they are not.
http://www.haxwell.org
I remember when Apple started charging for its .Mac stuff. Steve Jobs said that the free internet was over. Well, it seems to have rebounded. Gmail now offers 1GB of storage and everyone else seems to be going that way too. The problem is that AOL is becoming less useful. They were offering their subscribers a tiny email box and dial-up access for $24 per month. At the same time, they could get nearly identical service - often better - from others for less than half that price. Heck, you can get it from AOL for less than half the price under their Netscape brand. This has led AOL to loose, I think, 4 million subscribers recently.
AOL never came up with a good broadband strategy and they never came up with content or tools that the internet didn't match or better. Put that together and AOL just doesn't look like a good value. With this strategy, AOL is trying to correct that mistake and leverage the AOL brand to offer things on the same playing field as its competitors.
I hope you're not trying to put a negative spin on that. Frankly, I think it's great that AOL's involved. Look what happened when Google entered the market: competition drove the quality of all the other products way up. Capitilism at its best.
I really don't think AOL will catch on to be nearly as big as the other three mentioned, but I don't begrudge them doing what's in their best economic interest.
Thank God for evolution.
"Does this mean AOL is trying to become something which it is not?"
1. AOL is a Internet technology compnay. Email is part of it. AOL is a customer service company. Email serves customers.
2. Who cares if AOL does something different. Does it really matter? Or is this where we all bash one company (MS, AOL, Walmart, **AA) for doing something, yet praise another company (Apple, RedHat) for doing the exact same thing.
3. You don't need to have the stupid lead-in questions that can be answered with a Yes or No. People will still not read the article and post comments. Even in duplicate stories.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Well lets see, they have a huge subscriber base already. The rest of the world is currently unaware google will be offering a free email service, and get this, all the non techies I have sent invites to have rejected them on privacy grounds. And lets face it, everyone has a hotmail account and knows its best use is for spam attracting, anonymous junk sign ups. Plenty of room for a quality service if AOL can provide it.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
This reminds of of when that crazy search engine Google said they were gonna do webmail. Nice try Google! We all know you're just a search engine!
AOL owns Netscape, which already has free webmail - granted, it isn't the greatest and doesn't have the AOL branding, but it's still in existence.
Most companies look at things from the perspective of "Will it make us money?" I'm sure AOL is not different. I'd say that someone came up with an idea, researched it and presented it to the managment team and was able to convince them that somehow, someway there was enough potential there for them to make money so they decided to do it.
Frankly, I kind of like the idea of an AOL email account. I can give people an address I'll never check!
No more than Google is. Remember when it was a search engine? AOL has been doing email for years.
/syle
Even in decline, AOL has 23 million solidly middle class subscribers, none of whom has ever given a damn what a Geek thinks about the service and could care less if you have a Gmail account.