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The AOL Roller Coaster
eldavojohn writes "There's a lengthy article at Information Week about AOL's history. A lot of us are familiar with AOL's history but few of us realize that it sits at a crossroads today where it could potentially find its way back into consumer's pockets — something it's tried to do before in a hit-or-miss fashion. From the conclusion of the article, one analyst states: 'Ironically, although you'd think AOL should dump its family mentality in light of its competitors like Yahoo, the key to AOL future branding success vs. Yahoo could be to actually capitalize on its family friendliness alongside targeting the tech-savvy community currently owned by Apple.' AOL has been met with many problems as of late, but can they pull themselves out of the hole this time?"
...die in a fire. A nasty, painful fire.
The article kind of glosses over that time that AOL released its users onto the Internet at large with absolutely no barriers or training, even an indication they were really not on AOL.
One of my funniest memories of that time was when someone had a webpage up criticizing AOL, and an AOL admin/cop/whatever contacted him and seriously explained that the webmaster was violating AOL's terms of service, and to take the webpage down immediately or have his AOL account terminated.
People looking for examples of how a corporate entity will gang-bang a shared service at the first opportunity need look no further than AOL and its toxic bus-load drop-offs onto the net.
Next time, mention that in a "History".
What the hell is AOL?
No really...
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AOL VS The Internet:
http://www.airsho.com/PCwebster/aol_users.htm
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I believe that the article has it right in terms of wondering what's to draw people to AOL when what they're offering is availabe quite widely from other providers. Once you've been in the wilds of the web, do you really need the kind of coddling they offer? Shiny interface and its free, but hardly necessary (What's necessary? Think Google). In between that and the recent security slippage, I'm skeptical this will be any kind of draw.
That's funny. "...at the forefront of the Internet revolution".
AOL was the last of the big BBS' to move to the internet, dragged kicking and screaming into ISP-dom by the flight of its subscribers to services that provided internet mail, usenet, ftp and uucp.
About ten thousand of Jack Rickard's army of sysops were offering internet services before AOL's tentative entry. Hardly "a company that was once ahead of its time", AOL nearly didn't make it at all.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
I don't know if family friendly is a word I would use with AOL. Every browsed their own chat rooms? You see a lot of user created room names like M4M in various forms. Also, AOL is more a content provider now than just an ISP. Your average ISP is not AOL/Time Warner. They give away their music videos (music.aol.com). I wonder how they will make money with their free service. Lastly, all you needed to do to use the internet without AOL in the days of dial-up was login to AOL, and then minimize it.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
We started off using AOL when they had all the free trials gear for dialup. When we'd get through a free trial, we'd just use another credit card. Now, Dad pays for Unlimited Dialup (broadband not available at his house) with them. He knows there's cheaper, and in almost every other aspect he shops around. But they Woo'd him in the beginning, probably with the email account for everyone in the family and the "kid-safe" chatrooms. I don't know any other ISPs (atleast in Australia) that run their own (easy to access for the not-so-technically inclined fold) chatrooms, and I think it's a good idea - people are basically forced to behave by the fact their username is tied to a service they're paying for. I still think AOL are good in this respect. Other than that, yes, AOL should "Die in a fire", as the OP states.
Most of the people who I know who use Macs were recommended them (and recommend them to others) because they want things to be easy and simple.
This *could* be an ideal market for AOL, I agree, but it's hardly tech savvy.
FWIW generally my experience is that the market is split into approximately four parts -
Those that want an easy life (running Macs)
Those that want complete control (running Linux)
Those that don't know what the options are (running Windows)
Those that have specific software needs (running any of the above).
The number of people in category one who could be described as tech savvy is not really all that high. You don't need to know a lot about the insides of a computer to decide that this one doesn't need much work to make it do what you want.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
To the non tech savvy, tech savvy now means "buys gadgets."
The actual tech savvy, of course, are the people who pick the broken and discarded gadgets from the "tech savvy"'s trash and make new and interesting gadgets from their bits and pieces.
God I love early adopters.
KFG
Seriously, what does AOL really have to offer?
The Internet now has a ton of darn good content. At this point, no one company could ever hope to offer a meaningful supplement to the huge choices already available. The idea of AOL charging for "special content" just doesn't make sense anymore. Popular content is now free by definition (wikipedia, google, youtube, P2P, etc.).
The idea of AOL as a provider of bandwidth doesn't make sense -- AOL doesn't own the last-mile pipes into people's homes, so here they are nothing but a middleman, unnecessarily jacking up the cost of service.
Maybe AOL can carve out a niche as a "hand-holder" for novice users; but that requires manning expensive support phones. It's not clear to me that a company can make a profit offering support contracts to the domestic market, where the price points are so low.
And now AOL wants to reach out to the "tech-savvy" segment? Do they not understand that the tech-savvy have spent the last 10 years laughing derisively at the AOL brand name? They would be much better off developing a new brand name for that purpose.
Have things really descended to the point that someone can seriously utter a phrase like, "the tech-savvy community currently owned by Apple"? Apple's entire schtick, from the first Macintosh onwards, has been that their products don't require any kind of expertise, that they "just work", and that they produce the computer "for the rest of us" -- where "us" should probably not be construed to mean frequent Slashdot readers and users of Sourceforge.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
And it would be good if they went back to having cleaned up chat rooms, even though I suspect that that boat sailed.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
AOL recently aced PC World's list of the top 25 worst tech products of all time. .
I don't think they were all bad. They did send me all those nifty coasters, frisbees, and BB targets.
ME TOO!
Having PCWorld rate the top 25 worst tech products is a lot like Sadaam Husein rating the worst leaders and not even including himself.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Well, an excellent way for them to make a comeback is if they did a complete overhaul and focused on providing a heavily filtered version of the Internet in all forms, in an attempt to make it as safe from crime, viruses, and nasty content as possible. With the total and complete mess that the Net is in these days (flooded with spam, crime, and malware), I would think that at this point in time, some people would be falling all over themselves to use a service like that. I would even use a service like that for my business!
All I want to know is why in the WORLD you can't log into the mobile interface to check your email if you have an AOL My eAddress.
Actually, for that matter, you can't even check AIM screen names through that interface.
What gives??
Friends don't let friends line-dance.
AOL: an ISP for people who don't know any better
09:F9:11:02 - 9D:74:E3:5B - D8:41:56:C5 - 63:56:88:C0
I don't remember it was 8-10 years ago
Riiight. Because tech-savvy people only work on the cheapest hardware they can find with open-source operating systems. Everyone else is just playing pretend.
Mac: For people who don't want to know why their computer works
Linux: For people who do want to know why their computers works
DOS: For people who want to know why their computer doesn't work
Windows: For people who don't want to know why their computer doesn't work
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Well, uhm, yeah. More or less. Being tech-savvy obviously means that you understand the tradeoffs involved in price/quality/performance for computer components. Since very little of it is of any quality (and if it is, it is purely by luck, and the manufacturer doesn't even realize he can charge more for it), and performance is getting better in two weeks anyway, you can just as well buy something cheap. And there should be no doubt that linux, with its programmer-friendly interface, and wide adaptility to everything from cell-phones to supercomputers, makes a popular OS among the tech-savvy crowd.
But go ahead, buy expensive gamer 3d-cards to get 0.2% higher framerate in tetris, put stickers with flames on the side of your cabinet and see if it boots any faster, go for the exclusive "mac" experience where you pay to use the same OS and computer as gay people do, or choose windows because you love your computer failing.
When you graduate from college any move out of the dorms you may find that your time actually has some value, at which point you may see why OS X is the better choice for desktop *nix. But until then, enjoy your delusions.
Let's face it, it is a safe bet that no one reading /. is going to sign up for AOL or give that company any money at all.
Also, it is possible for the company to turn a large profit without that market (IMHO, IANABA*)
The major problem they face is a image problem, a lot of people who might like a service like AOL have already herd that "AOL Sucks, never use their service". Without debating the validity of that statement, I think most of these people could be fooled by a corporate name change. The people that will see through it probably won't use AOL in any form no mater what, so it doesn't matter, as far as AOL is concerned.
Along with a name change, the new company would need something to make it different from the 5million other ISPs out there. As some have suggested, I think providing a "Safe internet" would be a good one. No content provider is going to win customers by having "special content no one else has". However, the fact is there is a lot on the internet that average people would prefer to avoid. If the new AOL could convince people that it provided a useful and interesting, pre sorted and approved subset of the great big internet; while at the same time allowing people to venture outside the "Safe zone" if they are feeling adventurous, they could carve out a market. Particularly of families where parents don't care to monitor their children and decide what is "appropriate" for them; they could (and I think would rather) someone like their ISP do it for them.
This, as I see it, is what it will take to "turn AOL around".
*IANABA == I am not a business analyst
I can't even believe I'm responding to this.
The same computer that gay people use? You're an obese twelve year old in Nebraska, I hope. I hope.
When you have actual money someday, and you have the choice between fiddling for days getting your kernel recompiled to work with some $12 video card, or having sex, you'll probably opt for the Mac, too. That's what I did, anyway.
What web portal lets you watch all five seasons of Babylon 5?
Hi, I would like to cancel my subscription to this thread. No really. Please. I really don't want this subscription, please let me cancel. No you can't talk to my Dad. Please just unsubscribe me. Oh, 6 free months of this thread? I'll pay you to unsubscribe me. Therein lies AOL's yellow brick road to profit, make people pay to unsubscribe lol.
I remember from the days of AOL 2.5 up to 6.0. The amount of progz, bombers, and OMFG the "Coach" account program... That was just some intolerable stuff. Though, admittedly, those progz came in handy defending yourself from those other progz out there.
I wish AOL would realize that if they wanted to get mass profit and save money (by needing less programmers for their cruddy software,) they should just have been a pure ISP. Let the users figure their own stuff out without your software in the way. It was this shoddy experience with their software that got me to switch to 'pure' services like DSL and Cable, and hopefully Fiber soon enough. Just provide the bandwidth, AOL, not extra stuff on our computer. No extra security holes, etc. Just give us the LINK, let us screw up otherwise. It's a far smarter move.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
As a matter of fact, I don't know anybody who uses a mac that aren't gay, or could be mistaken for one (such as a metrosexual, or anyone that puts appearance before functionality). As for your guess of who I am, you were wrong on all counts, I'm a reasonably fit 32 year old security guard from Norway (and I've got an education as a computer scientist).
True enough, my work pays a lot less than what I got when I programmed for a living, but I get by. My $12 video card got autodetected by ubuntu, and runs just fine with accelerated 3d and the nvidia driver. (I tried windows once, and I had to download some random patches such as DirectX-somelargenumber just to be able to use the drivers on the included disk, which took a long time, and then I had to reboot three times before my drivers were installed, and about 270 reboots and a week later, I had a working windows installation...).
In ubuntu, I had none of this hassle, and everything runs fine. I don't recompile my kernel, because my distro provides perfectly adequate kernels for me, but if I had to, it would probably take me an hour or two of fiddling, not days. I fail to see why this should have anything to do with sex. Do you fuck your macintosh? I prefer women... computers and sex don't mix very well!
I agree, I don't know many "normal" linux-users. While I think you exaggerate a bit (whereas my gay-mac-stereotype was not exaggerated), you certainly have a point. Linux isn't exactly mainstream. The only reason there are more than one linux user, is because nerds, geeks, dorks, and loosers have slowly taken over the mainstream. Today, you are considered socially inept if you don't play WoW for at least 45 hours each day!
By the way, I get to wonder why you are here on this site ;-)
AOL and Compuserve (remember them?) were great in the pre-CD era. I never bought floppy disks. Whenever I was low, I'd call up their free numbers and tell them I was interested in a free trial. They'd send me the disks, which I would promptly wipe and re-use. CDs took all the fun away.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I have the same problem, I really don't understand what AOL is.
Until lately I really didn't care, but I now have a good friend in the USA who thinks highly of AOL, but so far I have not been able to really understand what AOL is.
Living in Denmark I don't think there is such a thing as AOL in our part of the world, I can get my internet connection through a number of ISP's who offers little else but the ISP and what you usually get along with that (email adresses, a little room for a homepage maybe and a "startpage" of some kind, maybe even some simple pieces of useles software), but somehow AOL seems to be something diffrent than an ISP, or at least providing the internet connection is only a little part of what they do.
I am not aware of AOL providing any content on the internet that I have used so far, so that can't be what they offer (or is it?).
AOL seems to provide some kind of software that my friend really likes, it should be very user friendly according to her.
She is skilled at many things using a computer, so I do think that what she says has a point.
This article did provide some more information on what AOL is, but still I am a little confused, so I would be grateful if anyone could point me to a place where I can learn more or explain to me what it is AOL provides.
Do gay people use Macs more than straight people? Are all design professionals gay? If you've got any hard proof, show it, otherwise I won't believe it. But that's not the point.
What's wrong with using the same type of computer as gay people? Why would that be a bad point of using a Mac? This is an example of the most damaging form of homophobia. You probably don't think of yourself as homophobic, you'll probably reply to this comment by saying you have lots of gay friends and they're great people. But everytime you say that 'Macs are for gays', or call something 'gay' when you mean bad, you're helping to create a climate where people think of homosexuality as an affliction rather than just a different way of living.
In this day, when we finally have started to conquer racism and sexism in the hearts and minds of our children, we are leaving them a legacy of homophobia that is equally damaging, both to civil rights and to the children themselves. It may seem trivial now, but the cumulative effect of thousands of casual comments is more damaging than anything one group could do. So just think before you say something like that; I'm sure you didn't mean any harm.
As for your questions: Yes, gay people use macs more than straight people, just look at Steve Jobs! No, not all design professionals are gay, some design professionals use Windows. The wrong thing about using the same type of computer as gay people is that you get a slick looking, but expensive and useless slow-puter with only one mouse-button.
As for your other comments: Hey, even if you actually feel offended, and are not just faking it out of misplaced political correctness, don't be so gay about it! OK?
As the largest ISP in America (if not the world) for a time, it was the Wal Mart of the Internet for many years, and remains very popular. My dad recently got cable internet but still has too much invested into 8+ years at AOL to abandon his addresses & communities, so he continued to pay Bring-Your-Own-Access fee.
-Stu
I believe that homophobia is one of the most pressing problems among young people today, so no, not just misplaced political correctness.
That said, that was actually very funny...