AOL to Enter the VoIP Ring

FiveDollarYoBet writes "Looks like AOL is entering the VOIP racket. The service is free but it's really a Skype clone with a copper local number. They're also going to offer an unlimited version for $14.95 a month but you have to make the calls from your computer. It'll be interesting to see if it's more of a IM live chat or a true VoIP. The article also outlines their plans to take on MySpace in the near future."

Comments

Ya!

[kitsunewarlock]

And once again AOL offers us another paid service any person can spend 15 minutes learning to get absolutely free and legal! Pity time and warner.

Re:Ya!

[no_mayl]

Just good marketting.
I'm old enough to remember the days when Compuserve (before being bought by AOL) had real TCP/IP that allowed Minix users to connect over a modem while AOL had some hacked up custom protocol that worked by replacing all network related apps on windows.

Look who's still around...
That's Marketting with a capital M
or maybe just lazy/ignorant users.

Re:Ya!

[FireFury03]

And once again AOL offers us another paid service any person can spend 15 minutes learning to get absolutely free and legal!

How is this different to almost any other consumer-level paid-for thing in computing? Lets see:

1. SkypeOut is a single closed service with vendor lockin. There are hundreds of SIP->PSTN gateways out there where you are *not* locked in and can get a better deal. However, many people still use Skype because of marketting and lazyness. I was talking to someone (who is Pro-open-standards) the other day who was telling his parents to use SkypeOut rather than a SIP service - the reasonsing was that because Skype is locked into a single vendor it's easier than deciding which vendor to use and endtering those login details into your SIP client. Yes, vendor lockin really does make the lazy people happy because someone else has already made their decisions for them.

2. Most people spend money on MS Office. Why? They can get OOo for free and it probably doesn't lack any features they want anyway.

3. People buy stuff like Windows Mediacentre - why? MythTV is free.

The list goes on, I'm afraid many people don't know or care enough to go for the cheaper alternative. Whoever has the best marketting will always take a big chunk of the market, no matter how bad the product compared to the competition.

Re:Ya!

[TapeCutter]

That is why AOL has succeeded thusfar..

It's also the reason we have to put up with the concerted effort to take over your browser, spam your inbox, ect. People actually buy shit from random pop-ups and emails. AOL will happily promise to shield you from all the "hackers" for a fee. From what I can tell, (I'm not from the US), they are basically aimed at people who (for whatever reason) cannot use a browser for more than five minutes without calling a help desk.

If AOL suddenly had a change of heart and tried to educate their users about "the tricks of the trade" they would loose their (sizable) section of the market, it is in their interest to "help" their users and at the same time treat them as mushrooms.

"The average net use cannot figure it out in 15 minutes."

I agree. Whatever your opinion of AOL, there are plenty of people who are willing to pay for someone else to "work it out" for them Many of them don't want educating, they want a device like a preset home theater where they only have a few buttons to remeber to get what they want. Push the wrong buttons (like 'mute' or 'AV3') and they simply call in a TV repairman (or pester a relative) to "fix it".

"People are fucking stupid."

I don't see that behaviour as automatically stupid, sometimes it is just willfull ignorance. All through the 80's I repaired my own cars and bikes, now my car looks like a dishwasher under the hood and tells the mechanic how badly I have neglected it (error codes). I have a good enough idea of how my car works to spot bullshit, but spare me the details, what's it going to cost and how long will it take?

OTOH: Browse at -1 to see the stupidity of people on the net. While doing so remeber the 'netizens' who created the often nonsensical, bottom-dwelling posts were at least smart enough to work out how to post them.

Already?

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

Is it just me, or - not that they were ever early birds - is AOL getting to the party later and later with each forage into a new market?

...We're sorry, the number you have reached does not accept calls from AOVoIP users. Please try your call again through a more standards compliant provider.

Triton

[TubeSteak]

I bet if you want to use this, you're going to have to DL AIM's new "Triton" client (maybe they'll make it work with the older 5.x versions) and the ViewPoint advertising that comes with it.

I can't imagine that AOL would make this a standalone product.

So it will be ad supported, one way or another, if for no other reason than AIM already has ads built in.

TANSTAAFL, unless you block the ads, which the vast majority of the user base has no clue how to do.

Decent headstart to compete against MySpace

[Anonymous Coward]

AOL has always had a pretty family-oriented image, which was probably to their disadvantage in certain demographics but maybe not entirely in this case. At a time when there's a lot of concern about the so-called dangers of MySpace (child predators, etc), AOL could leverage their family-friendly image to tout a MySpace-like service that is also "family friendly": more safety features to protect children, parental controls for parents, and a number of other features that would score points with concerned parents.

Whether a service like that will get them anywhere near as big as MySpace is anyone's guess, but it would definately take advantage of both the current concern over MySpace's complete openness and AOL's current image. Plus, if the government really does require sites like MySpace to raise their minimum age to 18 and enforce age verification, there will be an entirely new market (12-17 year olds) for a kid-friendly MySpace, one that AOL could fill quite well for the reasons stated above.

Re:Decent headstart to compete against MySpace

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

and a number of other features that would score points with concerned parents.

You misspelled "lazy".

I can see it now...

[uvajed_ekil]

AOL Phone = plenty of incoming calls that are mysteriously lost, a staggering number of incoming telemarketing calls that get through to sell you replica watches and internet porn (despite your number being on the national "do not call" list), having to listen to ads before you get to your voicemail, you eventually paying way too much, and intelligent people nolonger taking you seriously.

well DUH

[myspys]

The service is free but it's really a Skype clone

You could say that about more or less ANY VoIP-system.

Skype does VoIP, so any VoIP-system is bound to be more or less a clone of it.

duh

Re:well DUH

[FireFury03]

You could say that about more or less ANY VoIP-system.

Skype does VoIP, so any VoIP-system is bound to be more or less a clone of it.

Actually, I'd say that Skype is the clone - SIP and H.323 have been around a lot longer than Skype. The only reason Skype have succeeded is marketting - open protocols have been doing the same job years before Skype came along, Skype just marketted their closed clone to the general public.

Re:I can hear it now

[brogdon]

"You've got Phone Call!!"

Based on this article from earlier today, I would think it'd be more like "You've Got Wiretap!"

Yet another proprietary VoIP solution

[Nurgled]

It saddens me that VoIP is going the way that IM went. I want something that will interoperate with everything else --including the traditional telephone network -- transparently. I don't want to have to care whether the person I'm calling uses Skype, or AOL, or Google Talk, or whatever. I just want to pick up my phone (software or hardware) and call them, like I can on the traditional phone network. Why does every new technology seem to degenerate into a mess of competing and deliberately un-interoperable implementations? How long will it be before the hacks of the IM world are repeated, and we end up patching up this mess with complicated multi-protocol client software?