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AOL Launches Free Webmail Service
kmilani2134 writes "America Online is moving into the Web-based e-mail market on Wednesday by tying e-mail into its popular AOL Instant Messenger service. Called AIM Mail, the service marks AOL's latest attempt to reposition itself as a broad portal rather than a subscriber-based service. It also will compete more directly against Yahoo Inc, Microsoft Corp.'s MSN division and Google Inc., all of which have battled over Webmail storage and features over the past year. This was covered by both eWeek and InternetNews.com. Of note, they seem to have incorporated the Mailblocks spam filtering and tracker addresses into their service. It will be interesting to see how long before these new 2 GB accounts are inundated with spam."
If you can get that @aol.com email for free, why the need to pay $10-$20 per month? I wonder if many subscribers will leave (not sure if it lets them cancel an account, then make an aim with the same name) or, at the very least, will they not gain many new ones?
can a subscriber cancel their account and keep the email address as a free one? Likely not as the email address is what is keeping 75% of all subscribers. Why else would you pay for dialup when you can spend $10 more and get broadband???
The idea of a capitalist world is that there are to be numerous products in the same category that compete and try to be the best. That way, the consumer is provided with a choice of what they wish to have, and often they end up with a better product as a result of the competition.
The problem is, all these new web mail services are offering basically the same thing for the same price (that is, no money, but people pay through the price of ads and such.)
As one can see, I use a gmail account, because it offers the keyboard shortcuts. In all honesty, that's all that's kept me there because it's the only unique feature. I don't mean to be bashing the new services; it just seems as though there's nothing new in each one that pops up, except for the name.
I thought so too until I realized it's not all that difficult to move your email address. Then I met a guy who pays for a cable connection and pays AOL on top of that for their UI and extras. I've begged him to stop but he feels comfortable in that little AOL frame. I've even showed him how easy it is to just open a damn browser and go wherever you want but he won't budge.
Are there even any reasonable email names left @aol.com? Will all the new free accounts use random strings for the UID?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Hrm... So you use AIM for corporate IM?
Sounds like a standup company... Please let me know which one it is so that I know not to give them any of my personal details...
JBlowCorpDivX: Hey John, what is Jane Doe's current balance? Account number XXXXXX, SSN: XXX-XX-XXXX
JDoeCorpDivY: No idea Joe, so how about them yankees?
Fantastic. Tell the people in charge to invest in an internal purpose built IM solution. One that doesn't involve using a third party's servers.
I suppose the ability to get a really cool email name creates demand for a new system. Is there really any other reason?
A most overlooked advantage to owning a computer is if they foul up there's no law against wacking them around a bit.
Much better than approaching this with an open mail relay!
Shhh... I realized something that few people seem to have got so far.
IT'S JUST EMAIL!
I store my email on my laptop thank you very much, and I have storage limited only by my free HDD space (of which, I might add, it hasn't approached yet, because I'm sane and use email like normal people do, to send messages and small attachments).
Not that I'm saying that lots of storage is a bad thing or anything, I'm all for it. But I imagine that this is more marketing hype than anything -- I'd estimate 97% of people won't even approach the space limits set for them, and these companies know this.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
AIM mail may provide a lot of space but it is not compelling compared to gmail.
I strongly suspect that it will be compelling for all those AIM users. How many non-techies know what POP and IMAP are? In my experience, all they care about is being able to check their email, and webmail access usually does that for them just fine.
I think this was a very smart move by AOL. Although, I do think they're idiots for not doing this long ago. Not that I've been following it closely, but it seems AOL has been lacking in the innovation department for some time. Case in point: why the heck haven't they started offering broadband?
I'll certainly be getting one of their accounts, in addition to my Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail accounts. So far, I have a Yahoo account forwarding to my Gmail account so that I get the combined effectiveness of both the Yahoo and Gmail spamfilters. There can be no harm in trying a new service and having so many email accounts like this, because they are all free services so you have no initial outlay on them!
I think the open IMAP access is not be switched on yet. But as far as I know, that is the plan... from the eWeek article:
"AOL already is planning additional features for the full launch of AIM Mail. The service will support the IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) standard so that users can access their AIM Mail accounts from other e-mail clients, Ben-Yoseph said."
I will update my blog when I have more info.
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