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Apple iTunes the New AOL? (Annoying Software?)
Remember how much everyone loved to hate AOL at the turn of the century? AOL offered bloated software, piles of unwanted installation discs, a walled garden of content, an overloaded newbie network, and a pricey dial-up service.
AOL has changed a lot since then, even though it's still here to kick around. But who needs to pick on AOL when we have Apple's iTunes?
Will Apple improve the items mention? Will iTunes end up like an unpopular service like AOL? How will the world know?!!! What music do you think the AIM man is listening to on his iPod? Is it a black and white iPod? Remember how much everyone loved to hate AOL at the turn of the century? AOL offered bloated software, piles of unwanted installation ... more -
Spammer gets 30 months in prison
A 27-year old man from Brooklyn was sentenced to 30 months in prison for spamming AOL.
Adam Vitale defeated the company's spam-filtering system and sent junk e-mails to more than 1.2 subscribers. In addition to the prison sentence, the man was also ordered to pay $180,000 to AOL.
"Vitale was caught making a deal with a government informant to send junk e-mails that advertised a computer security program in return for 50 percent of the product's profits, prosecutors said. [He] had 22 prior convictions and had also helped run an online prostitution ring on the Web site www.craigslist.com, but he has not been criminally charged."
Illustration: "Spam One-Liners" by Linzie Hunter. http://www.flickr.com/photos/linzie/sets/72157602417089... A 27-year old man from Brooklyn was sentenced to 30 months in prison for spamming AOL. ... more -
AOL to serve digital ads for 'USA Today' parent company
Gannett Co., which operates 23 television stations and 85 newspapers in the U.S. including USA Today, has signed on AOL's Platform-A as its digital advertising partner. More specifically, it'll be using Platform-A's Adtech, marking the U.S. debut of the formerly Europe-only division.
When the deal has rolled out completely, it'll encompass all of Gannett's local news markets for both print and broadcast, USAToday.com, and other Web properties that the company owns. No target date was provided. But it's a big deal for AOL, considering the reach of USA Today as well as the opportunities for local ad targeting. According to Nielsen, Gannett's Web properties have 25 million unique visitors per month.
"We selected Adtech because their top tier technology will allow us to seamlessly execute and deliver for advertisers at both a local and national level," Chris Saridakis, Gannett's chief digital officer, said in a release from the two companies. "With the Adtech platform, advertisers of all sizes will be able to easily reach our affluent, active online audience, whether it's through broad national campaigns, audience segmentation, or locally targeted campaigns."
AOL acquired the Germany-based Adtech last year. The company has been doing business in Europe for about a decade. Gannett Co., which operates 23 television stations and 85 newspapers in the U.S. including USA Today, has signed on AOL's Platfor... more -
Sixteen Candles Sequel?
Molly Ringwald recently told AOL that she'd like to do a sequel to "Sixteen Candles." "40 Candles," anyone? Would anybody go see it, and aren't there enough sequels out there already? Molly Ringwald recently told AOL that she'd like to do a sequel to "Sixteen Candles." "40 Candles," anyone? ... more
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AOL launches new gaming site
AOL has launched biggame.com, a site aimed at PC gamers, which includes game downloads, trailers, demos news and reviews.
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AOL completes buy-up of Bebo for £425 million
AOL has officially completed its £425 million purchase of Bebo, the UK's third most popular social-networking site - and has already announced a raft of new initiatives.
The web giant has created a new business division, People Networks, which will be run by Bebo's president, Joanna Shields. It will integrate AOL's AIM and ICQ instant-messaging platforms and other community features into the Bebo network, and encourage the cross-promotion of multimedia content, such as videos and music channels, between the two sites. AOL has officially completed its £425 million purchase of Bebo, the UK's third most popular social-networking site - and has alre... more -
Free SMS to mobiles from Desktop - AOL India
AOL India has announced that they are now letting the users of their instant messaging application to send free sms to any mobile user in the country. The service is currently supported by the popular mobile service providers in India including Airtel, Vodafone, Spice, Aircel and MTNL. AOL India has announced that they are now letting the users of their instant messaging application to send free sms to any mobile user... more
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AOL seeks growth in shift from mass site to niches
A company rooted in bringing the Internet to the masses, AOL is shifting its focus toward serving niche audiences with the launch of dozens of specialty Web sites.
The latest - ParentDish for parents - formally launched Friday, with The Boot for country music and The Boom Box for hip hop and R&B to follow on Tuesday.
Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, branching out in hopes of doing a better job attracting crucial advertising revenue to offset its rapidly declining Internet access business, calls the niche sites "passion points."
The sites reflect a growing sophistication of Internet users, who are spending less time at portals like AOL.com and Yahoo.com. and directly seeking specialized content at more focused sites. Examples outside AOL include Boing Boing, which keeps tabs on technology and the Internet; The Sartorialist, on street style; or Mom Logic, on parenting and being a mom.
"The consumer market is clearly fragmenting," said Bill Wilson, AOL's executive vice president for vertical programming. "We wanted to give people many front doors, not just one front door to come in."
In a fourth-floor corner office at AOL's new headquarters, once home to the grand Wanamaker department store in New York's Greenwich Village, Wilson was passionate, even hurried, as he zipped through AOL's plans to diversify its offerings.
Over the past several months, AOL has launched or revamped dozens of Web sites - from general portals such as Music and Sports to specialty sites like Spinner for indie music and StyleList for fashion. AOL plans to offer about two dozen more by year's end, including BigDownload for downloadable video games.
AOL isn't alone: Yahoo Inc. recently launched Shine for women ages 25 to 54. But, as the No. 4 Internet property behind Google Inc., Yahoo and Microsoft Corp., AOL has been more ambitious.
"The current problem with an awful lot of the mega sites is the fact that they aren't well targeted," said Rob Enderle, an industry analyst with the Enderle Group. "The material is written and designed for a general audience, and the reality is we are all individuals."
AOL reigned over the Internet when it was known as America Online. It gave millions of Americans their first taste of the Net and had 26.7 million U.S. subscribers at its peak in 2002. But its mostly dial-up base quickly eroded as Americans adopted high-speed broadband services through cable and phone companies.
That forced AOL to change its mission. Instead of locking its news, music videos and other features behind a manicured wall for paying subscribers, AOL began giving away almost everything free through ad-supported sites.
Initially, it tried luring current and former paying subscribers to its free sites. But with ad revenue stagnant, the company is seeking new ways to boost traffic.
"If all you're doing is keeping the people you have, that's not a growing audience," Wilson said.
There are some early signs of success.
According to traffic measurements by comScore Inc., AOL has had seven consecutive months of year-over-year growth in both unique visitors and page views.
For the entire first quarter, page views for AOL's content-focused sites, which exclude e-mail, instant messaging and the general AOL.com portal, grew 22 percent to 9.5 billion compared with the same period in 2007. The content sites had 55 million visitors in April, up 12 percent.
Jack Flanagan, an executive vice president at comScore, said niche sites aren't solely responsible for AOL's growth but have quickly attracted sizable audiences. A company rooted in bringing the Internet to the masses, AOL is shifting its focus toward serving niche audiences with the launch of d... more -
AOL Desktop 1.0 now shipping for Mac users
I know what you're thinking. WHY?
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AOL buys Bebo for £417m ($850 million)
AOL have agreed a deal to buy the social networking site Bebo for $850 million, in a takeover that will see the site's founders netting a 'significant windfall.'
The takeover is the latest in a string of multi-million-pound deals as firms look to tap into the boom in popularity of social networking sites, Myspace was sold for $580 million in 2005, followed by Microsoft netting a 1.6% share in Facebook in 2006.
Bebo is one of the largest social networking sites in the world with over 40 million global users, but what will the buy-out mean for Beboers? AOL have agreed a deal to buy the social networking site Bebo for $850 million, in a takeover that will see the site's founders n... more -
AOL News presents: where are they now?
Ever wonder what happened to Internet celebrities of yestermonth? Here it is.
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Hulu lands Time Warner, Viacom deal still closing
Time Warner and Viacom video content will soon run on Hulu, the Web video joint venture from NBC Universal and News Corp. The Time Warner deal is done, while Viacom's is "not totally signed," a source tells us. Both deals are said to be nonexclusive. The news isn't a shock:Time Warner subsidiary AOL agreed to distribute Hulu at launch and before the site even had a name, Viacom executives have praised Hulu in concept. Just yesterday, MTV exec Van Toffler said, "We've been talking to [Hulu] since the beginning, and we like it a lot." Mostly because it's not YouTube, of course. Time Warner and Viacom video content will soon run on Hulu, the Web video joint venture from NBC Universal and News Corp. The Time War... more
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AOL's 'Stupidest Idea Ever' (Beta)
Social networking news site Mashable reports today that Beta versions of AIM, AOL's instant messaging device, features 'real-time typing'. So you can see what your bud is typing, as they're typing. Wrong on so many levels. Social networking news site Mashable reports today that Beta versions of AIM, AOL's instant messaging device, features 'real... more
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Pac-Man with G-Force
It's a momentous day in cyberspace. You remember those:
Your first screen name
Your first chatroom experience
Finding that you can still be cool even without America Online
Creating your Facebook profile for the first time
Making your first website
Uploading your first Youtube video
Ah yes, pleasant were the days of yore.
Well, yore's days are still with us, because today, Gmail made it possible to chat with your AIM friends without even signing in to AIM. You heard that right. Gchat combines the two programs and organizes your AIM contacts right alongside your Gchat contacts, putting the online friends and more-commonly-chatted-with friends at the top of the list.
This innovation seems to exhibit what I've noticed about Google's strategy lately. They don't so much want to compete alongside major brands with a similar product as much as provide cool programs that enhance the consumer's experience with the product. That way they can build favor in the market without stepping on any competitor's toes. Google is the all-star of information gathering and accessibility.
If you were a holdout against Gmail, hopefully now you're jealous enough to want it.
Ever play Pac-Man? That gobbly character that eats up all the dots on the board and has a knack for tropical fruit? Well now Gchat is Pac-Man and AIM is a dot. It's a momentous day in cyberspace. You remember those: Your first screen name Your first chatroom experience ... more -
A Crusade Against the AOL CD Invasion
These guys were aiming to gather 1 million AOL CD's and truck them back to the company's headquarters. They wanted to let the company know how much waste they were littering the world with. This project has been halted due to AOL ceasing to send CD's as promo pieces. These guys were aiming to gather 1 million AOL CD's and truck them back to the company's headquarters. They wanted to let th... more
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The YOU GOT MAIL guy!
He's the guy--you get to see him--he's the YOU GOT MAIL VOICE GUY!
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AOL to Cut Global Work Force by 20%
AOL is cutting its global work force by an additional 2,000 jobs as it continues a transition from Internet access provider to online advertising company. The cuts affect about 1,200 positions in the United States, including 750 in northern Virginia, which has long been AOL's headquarters. AOL recently announced it was moving its headquarters to New York to be closer to the media advertising industry. AOL is cutting its global work force by an additional 2,000 jobs as it continues a transition from Internet access provider to online ... more
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Teds Leonsis - AOL vs the newspapers
some interesting stats about AOL - ted should know he is the boss
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