Yes, People Still Use AOL
Everyone knows that "portals" are an embarrassing left-over from the first Web era, a remnant from the time when we used to wonder how Excite stacked up against Lycos and Go.com. The future, everyone knows, belongs to nimble niche pubs and narrowly focused "verticals" -- because Web users no longer expect to share the same home page with millions of other Web users.
All well and good. But if you want to reach the widest possible audience on the Web, it certainly doesn't hurt to be on the home page visited by millions of other Web users. Example of the day: Gawker's famous Tom Cruise/Scientology video, which generated 1.1 million page views the day Nick Denton posted it earlier this month. We are told, by someone who should know, that more than half of those page views came via a link on Time Warner's (TWX) AOL News. "I didn't think it was that much, but it was definitely significant," Nick tells us via IM.
All well and good. But if you want to reach the widest possible audience on the Web, it certainly doesn't hurt to be on the home page visited by millions of other Web users. Example of the day: Gawker's famous Tom Cruise/Scientology video, which generated 1.1 million page views the day Nick Denton posted it earlier this month. We are told, by someone who should know, that more than half of those page views came via a link on Time Warner's (TWX) AOL News. "I didn't think it was that much, but it was definitely significant," Nick tells us via IM.
ibj2008
婚纱摄影
卷板机
股骨头坏死
弯管机
海岛游
国旅
澳洲旅游
自由行
出境游
超声波测厚仪
粗糙度仪
红外测温仪
超声波探伤仪
涂层测厚仪
北京印刷
wow power leveling
gamer need so that we will provide you a really instant way of delivery, if you buy world of warcraft gold, gold wow from
us. Just place your order to buy cheap wow gold from us then feel the world class service.
Pretty trippy, its the the internet is talking to me..
AOL is notorious amongst its users when it comes to cancelling their subscription. There are many horror stories of people's credit cards being billed well after they had called in to cancel AOL. There was even a lawsuit against AOL for this. Now CSi idiot, if you valued your customers, we would still be with you. We did try the Fords and AOLs but unlike your stupid ass, we the consumers are smart enough to choose where to put our money. You cannot produce shit and expect your customers to eat it. The smart money will go to those companies that innovate, value their consumers and give them something compelling. Do not expect the American people to shell out their money to AOL when all you do is treat us like shit. You got shit for brains, CSi. Wake up, you fucking moron!
What about those Time Warner folks whose 401k are now so fucked up because of AOL? What a disaster it was for them to become a part of "AOL Time Warner." You screwed up their families and their retirement portfolios. TWX reports earnings this Wednesday and AOL will yet report that they are continuing to lose customers. The American people will speak!
It is morons like you, CSi that has dragged AOL's good name to the dirt. If you spent more time innovating and less being such an idiot with SHIT for brains; AOL would be the Facebook, Google, Ebay, Yahoo and Microsoft of the tech world.
Good luck to us all.
CSi, well said when you compared AOL to Ford. People still drive Fords but it is a shitty stock trading at $6.60 today. AOL and Ford were both leaders in their respective areas and both failed to execute to maintain the lead. You are right, AOL will still be around. Let me remind you that Altavista and Lycos are still around but who really uses them and are they profitable? Make a long story short, AOL is still a LOSER and your CSi bad ass is one dumb ass moron. NUFF said.
Like most people who work for AOL you can't see where you went wrong with it. The two comments you responded to point me to two things you guys totally messed up: how AOL recently turned their home page into an exact copy of Yahoo's, which has been met by nothing but very loud derision from the general public, and how AOL just sat on the Netsape portal for - how long has been it now - seven or eight years? Longer? And did absolutely *nothing* with it (except for Jason Calacanis's short-lived "Digg clone" which is now on Propeller.com. - where it no doubt belongs) - but as for the portal itself, AOL is just letting it die.
Perhaps that's what those commentators are referring to...among other disasters AOL is responsible for (I'm not even skimming the surface here - as you and I are both well aware).
How about the Netscape browser - AOL needlessly let that die instead of promoting it as their new, next-generation portal for the more advanced user. Sure there's been some code updates, and sure I read the news every day and see there will be one more release and a surprise one-month extension on the browser's "support", whatever that means. Yippee.
You guys lose all around - you had a great audience and a lot of eyeballs at your disposal thanks to your email, the desktop portal itself, and IM, but you threw it away on a progressive dumbing-down of AOL's home page and ever-bloating, buggy desktop software and by letting Netscape, your greatest brand by far, and the closest thing to another Firefox that you guys will ever have, languish by the wayside. It *is* for shame - especially when I think about the amount of money you guys lost by not seizing the moment with Netscape and not doing better all-around by your paying customers for AOL.
Wasn't Ford the only car GIANT back in the old days? And you still see people driving 'em nowadays, right? That's because people have unique preferences. Google may be the #1 search engine for most people, but a lot of other people still want AOL, or Yahoo for that matter. Why? Simply because they prefer it, and people like you ain't going to change that.
AOL still has a wide reach, and is as relevant today as a portal/content provider as it was a decade ago to a lot of people. You can bash all day and all night, but AOL will continue to live on in one form or another.
Netscape was also a portal - it was when AOL purchased Netscape, and remained to be a portal for 7 or 8 years after the purchase. We actually launched Netscape and myNetscape prior to AOL buying Netscape.
It would be good to see some more details behind the general "AOL Losers". I'd be happy to walk you through some of the things we have done and the products we have.
(I worked at Netscape and now work at AOL.)
Portals have big reach. It's often the start page for many users. If you think about people wanting general news, portals like AOL or Yahoo are perfect for them as a starting point.
--Will Morris (employee of AOL) --