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AOL Launches Free Webmail Service

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the aol-instant-email dept.

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."

11 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. Open Mind by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 4, Funny

    It will be interesting to see how long before these new 2 GB accounts are inundated with spam.

    It's good to see you're approaching this with an open mind. Criminy.

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    Comment of the year
    1. Re:Open Mind by juberti · · Score: 5, Informative

      Seriously. I mean, at least try the product first.

      The AOL spam filters have gotten quite good over the past couple years, better than Yahoo/Hotmail and way better than that of your typical cable operator. The web interface is really nice (Mailblocks). There's free IMAP access. And if you use AIM, there's good integration between AIM and AIM Mail. Clearly I'm biased, but I think it's a great product.

      If you have an AIM account, you can try it out at http://mail.aol.com/ . If not, you can create an AIM account at https://my.screenname.aol.com/_cqr/registration/in itRegistration.psp.

      Some more info at my blog: http://journals.aol.com/juberti/runningman

  2. AOL? by mboverload · · Score: 3, Funny

    I don't know about you, but anyone that gives me an AOL address is immediatly put below me in my mind.

    1. Re:AOL? by profet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

  3. Will this cost them subscribers? by SteelV · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?

  4. more of the same by cryptoz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  5. Won't be too bad by iosmart · · Score: 4, Funny

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but I hear GMail uses something where if two users have the same message, it'll only save one copy of it on the servers. If AOL is using this kind of system, it won't hurt them at all to sell the email addresses of people...because their servers will only keep one copy of the message! :)

  6. And addys left at AOL? by Saeed+al-Sahaf · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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
  7. Re:Time for GMail to bump it up by Bagels · · Score: 3, Informative

    Nope. Google's got theirs set to slowly increase with time - it's currently closing in on 2.2GB. Every day or so they add a few more MB (about 150 since April 1, I believe)... so Google's probably not worried about AOL overtaking them in some silly storage space war. Not much of it is getting used, anyhow - I've still only filled mine with about 14MB of stuff, it's growing far faster than I can fill it.

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    --- Bwah?
  8. Getting a bit out of hand by bananahead · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Maybe it is just me, but it seems like we might be hitting the limits of free email. Exactly how many free email systems does the world need anyways? I have a Hotmail account which I don't use anymore. The 2Gb of storage is slowly filling up with crap. I log in occasionally to find out if there might be anything useful, there rarely is. I have a Google email account which I use for internet transactions. I forward that email to my Exchange account, which is then forwarded to my Blackberry. Exchange has dramatically improved their junk filtering, so very little gets to my Blackberry that I don't actually want there.

    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.
  9. Yoda says by Che+Guevarra · · Score: 3, Funny

    lost they are. Attempting to regain market share they are. Hmmm, desperate they are.