America Online, or AOL for short, is a corporation online service provider and Internet service provider. Based in Dulles, Virginia, Virginia, with regional headquarters installations in many cities around the world, it is by far the most successful proprietary online service, with more than 22 million subscribers at one point. For many Americans through the mid 1990s, AOL ''was'' the Internet, but the rise of open access to the Internet has shrunk its user base and left questions about its future. In 2000 AOL and Time Warner announced plans to merge, the deal was approved by the Federal Trade Commission on January 11 2001. See Time Warner for information on the merger and operations since then. ==History== AOL began as a short-lived venture called Control Video, a company whose product was an online service called Gameline for the Atari 2600 video game console. Subscribers bought a modem from the company for $49.95 and paid a one-time $15 setup fee. Gameline permitted subscribers to temporarily download games and keep track of high scores, at a cost of approximately $1 an hour. In 1983 the company nearly went bankrupt, and a young marketing veteran named Steve Case ascended to the position of CEO. Case changed the company's strategy, and in 1985 launched a sort of mega-Bulletin board system for Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 computers, originally called Quantum Link ("Q-Link" for short). He also changed the name of the company to Quantum Computer Services. In October 1989, Quantum launched its AOL service for Apple II family and Apple Macintosh computers, in February 1991 AOL for DOS was launched using a GeoWorks interface followed a year later by AOL for Windows. In October 1991, Quantum changed its name to America Online. These changes coincided with growth in pay-based BBS services, like Prodigy (ISP), CompuServe, and GEnie. == Massive growth == Case drove AOL as the online service for people unfamiliar with computer, in particular contrast to CompuServe, which had long served the technical community. AOL was the first service with a graphical user interface (GUI) instead of command lines, and was well ahead of the competition in emphasizing communication among members as a feature. In particular was the Chat Room, which allowed a large group of people with similar interests to convene and hold conversations, including:. *Private rooms — created by any user. Hold up to 27 people. *Conference rooms — created with permission of AOL. Hold up to 48 people and often moderated. *Auditoriums — created with permission of AOL. Consisted of a stage and an unlimited number of rows. What happened on the stage was viewable by everybody in the auditorium but what happened within individual rows, of up to 27 people, was viewable only by the people within those rows. AOL quickly surpassed GEnie, and by the mid-1990s, it passed Prodigy and CompuServe. For several years Prodigy allowed AOL to advertise on its service. Originally, AOL charged its users an hourly fee, but in 1996 this changed and a flat rate of $19.99 a month was charged. Within three years, AOL's userbase would grow to 10 million people. AOL was relatively late in providing access to the open Internet. Originally, only some Internet features were accessible, through a proprietary interface, but eventually it became possible to run other Internet software while logged in through AOL. They were the first online service to seamlessly integrate a web browser into content. AOL introduced the concept of Buddy Lists, leveraging their one-on-one Instant Messaging technology. In recent years, its traditional dial-up service has been declining in subscribers and popularity. In an attempt to combat this, the ''AOL for Broadband'' service, which delivers AOL content and chatrooms but no Internet access to users who have an existing high-speed Internet connection, was launched, but in 2004 the company pulled back from this plan. == CD-ROM distribution == AOL has long maintained a massive marketing push, mailing sign-up diskettes and CD-ROMs to over 100 million households, which fueled a massive growth and helped them dominate the online field. This push produced considerable backlash, including a program called No More AOL CDs that sought to gather one million unwanted CDs and dump them at AOL headquarters. Others view AOL disk collecting as valuable collecting items due to the vast number of CD-ROM design variations released by the company. == AOL users' reputation == People using AOL have a reputation online, unfairly or otherwise, for being excessively "noobish" - newbies who don't know netiquette. This is in part due to the fact that AOL is aimed towards mainstream users who are new to the internet. To a segment of the online population, an e-mail address ending in ''aol.com'' is a sign of ignorance, to be avoided at all costs. ==Controversies== ===Community Leaders=== Prior to the middle of 2005, AOL used volunteers called America Online Community Leaders Program, or CLs, to monitor chatrooms, message boards, and libraries. Community Leaders designed much of what an average member saw, using a designing code called RAINMAN. In 1999, Kelly Hallissey and Brian Williams, former Community Leaders and founders of the website http://www.observers.net Observers.net filed a class action lawsuit against AOL citing violations of U.S. labor laws in its usage of CLs. The Department of Labor investigated but came to no conclusions, closing their investigation in 2001. The Community Leader program was terminated on June 8, 2005. ===Billing disputes=== AOL has faced a number of lawsuits over claims that it has been slow to stop billing people after they accounts have been cancelled, either by the company or the user. == Company purchases == As it grew, AOL purchased many other software companies, including: *BookLink bought in December 1994. *NaviSoft's NaviServer (later to become AOLserver) in 1994. *ImagiNation Network from AT&T in 1996. *CompuServe in February 1998. *Mirabilis (company) (maker of ICQ) in 1998. *PLS text-search software in 1998, *Nullsoft (maker of Winamp), in 1999 for United States dollar86 million *Netscape Communications Corporation, in 1999 for $4.2 billion. *Mapquest in 1999. *Tegic in December 1999. *Singingfish search engine, November 2003. ==Notable persons associated with AOL== *Jim Kimsey (former CEO and board chairman) *Steve Case (former CEO and board chairman) *Jan Brandt (former President of Marketing) *Justin Frankel (Nullsoft founder), who resigned in early 2004. *Ted Leonsis (Vice-Chairman, President AOL Audience Group) *Michael Powell (during merging with Time Warner) *Marc Andreessen (Netscape co-founder) *Karen Thompson (AOL UK CEO & Chairman) ==See Also== * AOHell * AOHack_programs ==External links== *[http://www.aol.com/ AOL US] *[http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Fall2000/McAtee/ AOL: A History] *[http://staff.jccc.net/lcline/index.htm AOL Disk Collection] *[http://www.jmusheneaux.com/8000c.htm Important Dates & A Look at AOL's Evolving Interface] *[http://www.nomoreaolcds.com/ The "No More AOL CDs" campaign] America Online Time Warner subsidiaries Internet service providers Corporations with naming rights of stadiums Online service providers
Others view AOL disks as valuable collectible items due to the vast number of CD-ROM design variations released by the company. Are these ''others'' large enough in significant number that they deserve mention? --User:BlueGlowGuardian 07:43, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC) :Experienced users of the :Internet jokingly call the AOL service "Assholes Online" because they view AOL users as :newbie who are not interested in the workings of the Internet and therefore do no not understand the customs and conventions - ie. :netiquette - of the Internet. Cut this from the main page. Is there a way the same point can be put, er, neutrally? Surely, some such factoid needs to be included in the article, but jeez. --User:LMS ::''In the early 1990s, AOL was among the first service providers to give customers from outside academia and the military access to the Internet. They also emphasized a relatively user-friendly, graphics-heavy interface. As such, they were primarily associated with the influx of new users, unversed in netiquette, who came online in that period.'' ::-That was someone's contribution that attempted to NPOV the idea. A start, but not deep enough, IMHO. I'm contributing a rewrite of the para and am preserving the old para here. My rewrite is too long compared to the rest of the article, but I think that's because the rest of the article needs major expansion, not because my rewrite is itself too long. :::I feel that the article as it is fails to mention or make obvious the usage of AOL as a derogatory term. I tried to alleviate this by making a disambiguation page on AOL; however, my edits were reverted. IMHO, NPOVing the idea simply obfuscates it. We are supposed to describe, not prescribe. :::-- User:UTSRelativity 21:51, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC) ---- :Hello, you know some Wikipedians are AOL users? I'd rather have AOL than some plain old dial-up connection ISP. And by no means am I an inexperienced web user. AOL's browser looks better than Internet Explorer/Netscape, has chat rooms, instant messages, newsgroups, billing info etc. in the one place, and has that pleasant 'Welcome', 'You've got E-mail' and 'Goodbye', just in case you need someone to talk to... - User:Mark Ryan For billing info, use any ISP's web site (which you can bookmark). If you just want the sounds, record your significant other reciting the lines, then Start > Settings > Control Panel > Sounds (or on Windows ME, > Sounds and Multimedia). The other features seem to suggest adding the following to the article: :Ironically enough, as of early 2002, the combination of a generic ISP and the :Mozilla browser (produced largely by AOL's Netscape division) seems to have become the largest competitor to AOL's own service. Mozilla has downloadable "chrome" (visual styles of user interface), built-in mail, news, and Internet Relay Chat software, and a :Java platform interface to AOL Instant Messenger (at http://toc.oscar.aol.com/). In other words, I agree AOL needs to be an article *about the company*. Since we are an encyclopedia, let us also include prodigy, compuserve (which was bought by AOL)..get the point? I agree AOL needs to be an article *about the company*. Since we are an encyclopedia, let us also include prodigy, compuserve (which was bought by AOL)..get the point? :Yeah, but all the same, AOL was the first ISP I chose, it costs the same as other dial-up companies, Gives me 7 screen names/email addresses, (which I can check on the web from any computer as well), a search box integrated into the toolbar, automated connections (i.e. you set the time and it will dial-up itself, connect, and download something or send emails you wrote while you were offline), more insider info on Warner Bros productions (like Lord of The Rings), competitions, and I beta-tested AOL Australia 7.0, and in gratitude, they gave their beta-testers AOL free. That's pretty good. ---- I have a problem with this this line: ''In the late 1990s and into the early 2000s, AOL began purchasing and supporting many popular software projects and companies. These ventures include Nullsoft's Winamp, purchased in 1999 for $86 million, Netscape, Mozilla (now an independant organization), and ICQ. Some of these projects are open source. '' This line interfers that AOL bought mozilla.org the same time they brought Netscape. This is clearly false. mozilla.org started on 23 Feburary 1998. The code was released on 31 March 1998. The NSCP/AOL merger happened at the end of 1998. The Bottom line: AOL inherited mozilla.org and did not buy it. User:Hoshie 05:33, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC) :No objections from me! :-) :--User:Cprompt 12:40, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC) ---- Apple Computers' e-World was one part of the evolution of America On-Line. * [http://www.savetz.com/ku/ku/oswell_e_world_apple_s_own_online_service_april_1994.html e-world] - User:Sparky 03:57, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC) : I would disagree. EWorld (the handsomest of all the online "communities," if not always the most functional) was produced after AOL had already established itself. AOL didn't take from it, it's the other way around; this is a rare case where Apple followed others' design lead. User:DavidWBrooks 14:32, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC) ::I was working at AOL during the years before, during, and after EWorld coming online. EWorld was in fact a version of the AOL service that was run on separate servers dedicated to EWorld. These servers were in AOL's building. It was the AOL host-side software with minor, mostly cosmetic changes to transform it into Apple's EWorld. The client-side software that EWorld subscribers installed on their computers was the standard AOL client software with minor, mostly cosmetic changes. Subscribers got their tech support by calling AOL's tech support centers. The content published on the EWorld service was created and controlled by Apple. Apple Computers paid AOL something in the neighborhood of $11 million per month for all this, but that's just a ballpark figure from my sporadic memory. ::The standing joke among EWorld subscribers and others was that EWorld stood for Empty World, because there were almost no subscribers actually using the service at any given time, despite there being quite a lot of content on the service. This was back when online services were discrete and separate from the Internet. In fact ISPs were almost nonexistent. If you wanted Internet access then you had to work or be a student at an institution that was part of the Internet. I don't recall the exact timeline now, but IIRC, the EWorld deal between Apple and AOL ended very roughly the same time that AOL started implementing gateways to the Internet, allowing at first just email, followed by Gopher and Archie. Within a year or so, AOL started offering Web browsing, but I think that was after the AOL/Apple terminated the EWorld deal. ::For fun one day, I spent about thirty seconds hacking the standard-issue AOL client software on my home computer so that it would log into the EWorld service instead of the AOL service. This wasn't a useful hack really, except to demonstrate how little difference there was between the two services. The EWorld service and the AOL service were virtually identical, from the software POV. Except for the stored artwork (similar to what we call 'skins' today) and the fact that very few of the keywords or links between screens were the same on the two services because different content was published on each service. ::On paper, the EWorld creation made a lot of sense, but it's hardly the first time that Apple failed to draw enough paying customers to a good idea. OTOH, many people feel that one of Apple's chief goals was to infuse cash into a debt-ridden AOL because AOL was being something of a thorn in Microsoft's side or at least strategic distraction and that was to Apple's advantage. ::-I still haven't worked up the initiative to create a wikipedia username 01:30, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC) == Response to Mark Ryans comment. == ''Hello'' Yes hi to you too. I shall counterdict your remarks that defend AOL. ''I'd rather have AOL than some plain old dial-up connection ISP'' Get dsl if you dont want some plain old dial-up connection isp. Dsl not available in your area or cable, try satallite. Anything better then the 'ol 56k. But I shall counterdict all of your remarks. ''AOL's browser looks better than Internet Explorer/Netscape'' It does? It looks bloated to me and probably quite insecure. Try Mozilla, it's skinnable and has many features you can add to it with plugins. ''has chat rooms, instant messages, newsgroups'' Yeah them chatrooms you can find on Yahoo Messenger too. Though chatrooms are complete garbage so why someone whos gone through puberty would want to go there is beyond me. Newsgroups you can access with any POP mail account and a mail client(try Mozillas). And standalone instant messenger programs are quite easy to find. Why you can even download Aol Instant Messenger and talk to the people who are foolish to still use AOL. ''has that pleasant 'Welcome', 'You've got E-mail' and 'Goodbye'' Thats quite annoying to me. How someone can actually find that pleasent if amazing. Although I have nothing against ya Mark I just cant stand someone defend AOL since I think it's a terrable ISP. ::Is the Wikipedia really a place to tell someone you think their ISP "SuXx0Rs"? Both sides of that debate belong somewhere besides an encyclopedia. ==AOL owned by Time Warner?== I thought that AOL and Time Warner merged. Is saying Time Warner owns AOL any more accurate than saying AOL owns Time Warner? They are one company. Thoughts objections...? BrokenSegue\">User:BrokenSegue">User:BrokenSegue|BrokenSegue\">User:BrokenSegue 23:46, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC) :No objection, per se. Here's a more detailed answer to your question, but it contains significant chunks of non-neutral POV. Cut, paste, and edit as you like for inclusion in the article proper. :-> :When the two companies initially began talks, both sides were open to almost any configuration of the final deal, according to the earliest participants. They were equally comfortable with TWX acquiring AOL or vice versa. Or various forms of "strategic partnership agreements", or just about anything else you can think of. They decided on AOL acquiring TWX and that was the deal that was implemented. :Accordingly, on the merger's effective date, TWX was no longer traded on the stock exchange, only AOL was traded. The now-merged company paid all owners of TWX stock using AOL stock as payment. The former AOL boss was one notch higher on the organization chart than the former TWX boss, and the two boards of directors merged into one. :Sadly, there are a great number of people on the Internet whose perception of AOL is governed by an angry bias towards AOL subscribers and lack of information about how the thing really works. A similar angry bias against the merger began dominating much of the public discourse about the AOL/Time-Warner merger even before it was completed. By the time that federal and shareholder approval finally came through for the merger and it was implemented, the stock market was on the brink of going south from "the dotcom craze" to "the dotbomb crash". Shareholders in the now-merged company were angry and looking for someone to blame, and of course, the favorite scapegoat for the merger was AOL's brass instead of Time-Warner's. My personal guess is the shareholders should have been most angry at the stockbrokers who made all kinds of extremely improper -- but only implied -- promises that the new stock was going to make them rich. :With the zillions of small shareholders (who are typically less sophisticated and informed investors than the big shareholders, who invest as a full-time profession) just wanting someone to blame, the stage was set for the top management structure of the old Time-Warner to start taking over full control of the company by displacing any top AOL management from positions of influence they had within the company. In the space of eighteen months or so, this was accomplished, with old AOL brass being kicked out of the company or keeping their jobs but having the job responsibilities changed to only control the AOL division of the company instead of the entire AOL/Time-Warner company. :The process was complete; AOL had paid for the merger and "acquired" Time-Warner, but it was now the Time-Warner management who controlled the company. Some months later, the final seal was put on this fact by announcing that the new company was changing its stock symbol from AOL to...drum roll please..to TWX. :It seems clear to many close observers that the company is now in the process of stripping most of the portable assets of the AOL division and killing any major new investments in it, in order to sell off the division to whomever is willing to buy it. That whomever may well end up being small investors on the stock market, if they spin the AOL division off to become an independent company with its own publicly traded shares of stock. Presumably traded under the AOL ticker symbol. :If, at that point, any CompuServe employees survive from the years when CompuServe was owned by H&R Block, before AOL bought it from H&R, who can blame them for seeing irony in how the tale ends? Or call it karma, if it pleases. :-I still haven't worked up the initiative to create a wikipedia username 01:30, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC) ---- Hmm, this article isn't that much bigger than a stub, considering the importance of AOL as a business story, as a significant part of tens of millions of lives, and a significant and ongoing part of the evolution of this Internet that we're using right now. We need more sections. And its already obvious that NPOV is harder to come by specifically because AOL is a significant part of so many lives and a of the Internet. I'll add some seeds and maybe a suggested outline later, but it will probably be a few days. --I still haven't created a wikipedia user account :-< == Hardly NPOV == ''It is also ironic that so many of the unprovoked and vitriolic attacks flames written against AOL users are in themselves violations of the spirit and letter of netiquette. Despite these ironies, there remain a large number of persons using the Internet who adamantly promote the point of view that AOL users are somehow both inferior and a problem and many who will vigorously attempt to persuade people to abandon AOL for this reason alone, and switch to some other provider.'' Don't you agree? I admit AOL's stigma is worth discussing, but whoever wrote this engaged in a relatively biased disparaging of the people who dislike AOL. This seems less of an Encyclopedic declaration and more of an Editorialized Ad-Hominem Tu Quoque. America Online does have some faults, such as its proprietary log-on method which does not use the standard Dial-Up Networking Protocol. - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kade Kade] == AOL and Legal Issues == I think there should be a section on the amount of legal stuff that AOL has been involved in. I use the word 'stuff' deliberately because AOL has helped to make and shape laws as well as defending themselves in a court of law. I'd start writing this section myself except that I just can't remember the specifics very well. The only thing I can remember with any clarity is the class action lawsuit filed by Observers.net against AOL in the name of AOL's community leaders. The beef was that AOL should have been paying the Community Leaders because they were doing the same sort of work expected of paid employees.User:*Kat* 02:06, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC) == Pop culture == I just started the America Online and Pop Culture section. I intend to expand it to be much more than what it currently is. As a teenager who never had a social life, the Internet was a Big Deal when I first signed on and I took to it and its chatrooms like a fish to water. So most of my contributions will deal with the chatrooms, message boards, and Community Leader program.User:*Kat* 02:46, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC) :The Internet is a "Big Deal" to me, too, but I've never regarded "the Internet" as having anything whatsoever to do with the cheesy, proprietary online service that is the subject of this article. User:Dtobias 16:19, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC) :: AOL was/is the first/only Internet experience for millions of people - all of whom are much less cool than the previous poster, it seems, or at least it seems that way to the previous poster - and so its influence on many areas, including pop culture, is certainly worthy of an article. - User:DavidWBrooks 20:28, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Time Warner subsidiaries Internet service providers
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America Online
America Online, or AOL for short, is a corporation online service provider and Internet service provider. Based in Dulles, Virginia, Virginia, with regional headquarters installations in many cities around the world, it is by far the most successful proprietary online service, with more than 22 million subscribers at one point. For many Americans through the mid 1990s, AOL ''was'' the Internet, but the rise of open access to the Internet has shrunk its user base and left questions about its future. In 2000 AOL and Time Warner announced plans to merge, the deal was approved by the Federal Trade Commission on January 11 2001. See Time Warner for information on the merger and operations since then. ==History== AOL began as a short-lived venture called Control Video, a company whose product was an online service called Gameline for the Atari 2600 video game console. Subscribers bought a modem from the company for $49.95 and paid a one-time $15 setup fee. Gameline permitted subscribers to temporarily download games and keep track of high scores, at a cost of approximately $1 an hour. In 1983 the company nearly went bankrupt, and a young marketing veteran named Steve Case ascended to the position of CEO. Case changed the company's strategy, and in 1985 launched a sort of mega-Bulletin board system for Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 computers, originally called Quantum Link ("Q-Link" for short). He also changed the name of the company to Quantum Computer Services. In October 1989, Quantum launched its AOL service for Apple II family and Apple Macintosh computers, in February 1991 AOL for DOS was launched using a GeoWorks interface followed a year later by AOL for Windows. In October 1991, Quantum changed its name to America Online. These changes coincided with growth in pay-based BBS services, like Prodigy (ISP), CompuServe, and GEnie. == Massive growth == Case drove AOL as the online service for people unfamiliar with computer, in particular contrast to CompuServe, which had long served the technical community. AOL was the first service with a graphical user interface (GUI) instead of command lines, and was well ahead of the competition in emphasizing communication among members as a feature. In particular was the Chat Room, which allowed a large group of people with similar interests to convene and hold conversations, including:. *Private rooms — created by any user. Hold up to 27 people. *Conference rooms — created with permission of AOL. Hold up to 48 people and often moderated. *Auditoriums — created with permission of AOL. Consisted of a stage and an unlimited number of rows. What happened on the stage was viewable by everybody in the auditorium but what happened within individual rows, of up to 27 people, was viewable only by the people within those rows. AOL quickly surpassed GEnie, and by the mid-1990s, it passed Prodigy and CompuServe. For several years Prodigy allowed AOL to advertise on its service. Originally, AOL charged its users an hourly fee, but in 1996 this changed and a flat rate of $19.99 a month was charged. Within three years, AOL's userbase would grow to 10 million people. AOL was relatively late in providing access to the open Internet. Originally, only some Internet features were accessible, through a proprietary interface, but eventually it became possible to run other Internet software while logged in through AOL. They were the first online service to seamlessly integrate a web browser into content. AOL introduced the concept of Buddy Lists, leveraging their one-on-one Instant Messaging technology. In recent years, its traditional dial-up service has been declining in subscribers and popularity. In an attempt to combat this, the ''AOL for Broadband'' service, which delivers AOL content and chatrooms but no Internet access to users who have an existing high-speed Internet connection, was launched, but in 2004 the company pulled back from this plan. == CD-ROM distribution == AOL has long maintained a massive marketing push, mailing sign-up diskettes and CD-ROMs to over 100 million households, which fueled a massive growth and helped them dominate the online field. This push produced considerable backlash, including a program called No More AOL CDs that sought to gather one million unwanted CDs and dump them at AOL headquarters. Others view AOL disk collecting as valuable collecting items due to the vast number of CD-ROM design variations released by the company. == AOL users' reputation == People using AOL have a reputation online, unfairly or otherwise, for being excessively "noobish" - newbies who don't know netiquette. This is in part due to the fact that AOL is aimed towards mainstream users who are new to the internet. To a segment of the online population, an e-mail address ending in ''aol.com'' is a sign of ignorance, to be avoided at all costs. ==Controversies== ===Community Leaders=== Prior to the middle of 2005, AOL used volunteers called America Online Community Leaders Program, or CLs, to monitor chatrooms, message boards, and libraries. Community Leaders designed much of what an average member saw, using a designing code called RAINMAN. In 1999, Kelly Hallissey and Brian Williams, former Community Leaders and founders of the website http://www.observers.net Observers.net filed a class action lawsuit against AOL citing violations of U.S. labor laws in its usage of CLs. The Department of Labor investigated but came to no conclusions, closing their investigation in 2001. The Community Leader program was terminated on June 8, 2005. ===Billing disputes=== AOL has faced a number of lawsuits over claims that it has been slow to stop billing people after they accounts have been cancelled, either by the company or the user. == Company purchases == As it grew, AOL purchased many other software companies, including: *BookLink bought in December 1994. *NaviSoft's NaviServer (later to become AOLserver) in 1994. *ImagiNation Network from AT&T in 1996. *CompuServe in February 1998. *Mirabilis (company) (maker of ICQ) in 1998. *PLS text-search software in 1998, *Nullsoft (maker of Winamp), in 1999 for United States dollar86 million *Netscape Communications Corporation, in 1999 for $4.2 billion. *Mapquest in 1999. *Tegic in December 1999. *Singingfish search engine, November 2003. ==Notable persons associated with AOL== *Jim Kimsey (former CEO and board chairman) *Steve Case (former CEO and board chairman) *Jan Brandt (former President of Marketing) *Justin Frankel (Nullsoft founder), who resigned in early 2004. *Ted Leonsis (Vice-Chairman, President AOL Audience Group) *Michael Powell (during merging with Time Warner) *Marc Andreessen (Netscape co-founder) *Karen Thompson (AOL UK CEO & Chairman) ==See Also== * AOHell * AOHack_programs ==External links== *[http://www.aol.com/ AOL US] *[http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Fall2000/McAtee/ AOL: A History] *[http://staff.jccc.net/lcline/index.htm AOL Disk Collection] *[http://www.jmusheneaux.com/8000c.htm Important Dates & A Look at AOL's Evolving Interface] *[http://www.nomoreaolcds.com/ The "No More AOL CDs" campaign] America Online Time Warner subsidiaries Internet service providers Corporations with naming rights of stadiums Online service providers
America Online
Others view AOL disks as valuable collectible items due to the vast number of CD-ROM design variations released by the company. Are these ''others'' large enough in significant number that they deserve mention? --User:BlueGlowGuardian 07:43, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC) :Experienced users of the :Internet jokingly call the AOL service "Assholes Online" because they view AOL users as :newbie who are not interested in the workings of the Internet and therefore do no not understand the customs and conventions - ie. :netiquette - of the Internet. Cut this from the main page. Is there a way the same point can be put, er, neutrally? Surely, some such factoid needs to be included in the article, but jeez. --User:LMS ::''In the early 1990s, AOL was among the first service providers to give customers from outside academia and the military access to the Internet. They also emphasized a relatively user-friendly, graphics-heavy interface. As such, they were primarily associated with the influx of new users, unversed in netiquette, who came online in that period.'' ::-That was someone's contribution that attempted to NPOV the idea. A start, but not deep enough, IMHO. I'm contributing a rewrite of the para and am preserving the old para here. My rewrite is too long compared to the rest of the article, but I think that's because the rest of the article needs major expansion, not because my rewrite is itself too long. :::I feel that the article as it is fails to mention or make obvious the usage of AOL as a derogatory term. I tried to alleviate this by making a disambiguation page on AOL; however, my edits were reverted. IMHO, NPOVing the idea simply obfuscates it. We are supposed to describe, not prescribe. :::-- User:UTSRelativity 21:51, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC) ---- :Hello, you know some Wikipedians are AOL users? I'd rather have AOL than some plain old dial-up connection ISP. And by no means am I an inexperienced web user. AOL's browser looks better than Internet Explorer/Netscape, has chat rooms, instant messages, newsgroups, billing info etc. in the one place, and has that pleasant 'Welcome', 'You've got E-mail' and 'Goodbye', just in case you need someone to talk to... - User:Mark Ryan For billing info, use any ISP's web site (which you can bookmark). If you just want the sounds, record your significant other reciting the lines, then Start > Settings > Control Panel > Sounds (or on Windows ME, > Sounds and Multimedia). The other features seem to suggest adding the following to the article: :Ironically enough, as of early 2002, the combination of a generic ISP and the :Mozilla browser (produced largely by AOL's Netscape division) seems to have become the largest competitor to AOL's own service. Mozilla has downloadable "chrome" (visual styles of user interface), built-in mail, news, and Internet Relay Chat software, and a :Java platform interface to AOL Instant Messenger (at http://toc.oscar.aol.com/). In other words, I agree AOL needs to be an article *about the company*. Since we are an encyclopedia, let us also include prodigy, compuserve (which was bought by AOL)..get the point? I agree AOL needs to be an article *about the company*. Since we are an encyclopedia, let us also include prodigy, compuserve (which was bought by AOL)..get the point? :Yeah, but all the same, AOL was the first ISP I chose, it costs the same as other dial-up companies, Gives me 7 screen names/email addresses, (which I can check on the web from any computer as well), a search box integrated into the toolbar, automated connections (i.e. you set the time and it will dial-up itself, connect, and download something or send emails you wrote while you were offline), more insider info on Warner Bros productions (like Lord of The Rings), competitions, and I beta-tested AOL Australia 7.0, and in gratitude, they gave their beta-testers AOL free. That's pretty good. ---- I have a problem with this this line: ''In the late 1990s and into the early 2000s, AOL began purchasing and supporting many popular software projects and companies. These ventures include Nullsoft's Winamp, purchased in 1999 for $86 million, Netscape, Mozilla (now an independant organization), and ICQ. Some of these projects are open source. '' This line interfers that AOL bought mozilla.org the same time they brought Netscape. This is clearly false. mozilla.org started on 23 Feburary 1998. The code was released on 31 March 1998. The NSCP/AOL merger happened at the end of 1998. The Bottom line: AOL inherited mozilla.org and did not buy it. User:Hoshie 05:33, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC) :No objections from me! :-) :--User:Cprompt 12:40, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC) ---- Apple Computers' e-World was one part of the evolution of America On-Line. * [http://www.savetz.com/ku/ku/oswell_e_world_apple_s_own_online_service_april_1994.html e-world] - User:Sparky 03:57, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC) : I would disagree. EWorld (the handsomest of all the online "communities," if not always the most functional) was produced after AOL had already established itself. AOL didn't take from it, it's the other way around; this is a rare case where Apple followed others' design lead. User:DavidWBrooks 14:32, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC) ::I was working at AOL during the years before, during, and after EWorld coming online. EWorld was in fact a version of the AOL service that was run on separate servers dedicated to EWorld. These servers were in AOL's building. It was the AOL host-side software with minor, mostly cosmetic changes to transform it into Apple's EWorld. The client-side software that EWorld subscribers installed on their computers was the standard AOL client software with minor, mostly cosmetic changes. Subscribers got their tech support by calling AOL's tech support centers. The content published on the EWorld service was created and controlled by Apple. Apple Computers paid AOL something in the neighborhood of $11 million per month for all this, but that's just a ballpark figure from my sporadic memory. ::The standing joke among EWorld subscribers and others was that EWorld stood for Empty World, because there were almost no subscribers actually using the service at any given time, despite there being quite a lot of content on the service. This was back when online services were discrete and separate from the Internet. In fact ISPs were almost nonexistent. If you wanted Internet access then you had to work or be a student at an institution that was part of the Internet. I don't recall the exact timeline now, but IIRC, the EWorld deal between Apple and AOL ended very roughly the same time that AOL started implementing gateways to the Internet, allowing at first just email, followed by Gopher and Archie. Within a year or so, AOL started offering Web browsing, but I think that was after the AOL/Apple terminated the EWorld deal. ::For fun one day, I spent about thirty seconds hacking the standard-issue AOL client software on my home computer so that it would log into the EWorld service instead of the AOL service. This wasn't a useful hack really, except to demonstrate how little difference there was between the two services. The EWorld service and the AOL service were virtually identical, from the software POV. Except for the stored artwork (similar to what we call 'skins' today) and the fact that very few of the keywords or links between screens were the same on the two services because different content was published on each service. ::On paper, the EWorld creation made a lot of sense, but it's hardly the first time that Apple failed to draw enough paying customers to a good idea. OTOH, many people feel that one of Apple's chief goals was to infuse cash into a debt-ridden AOL because AOL was being something of a thorn in Microsoft's side or at least strategic distraction and that was to Apple's advantage. ::-I still haven't worked up the initiative to create a wikipedia username 01:30, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC) == Response to Mark Ryans comment. == ''Hello'' Yes hi to you too. I shall counterdict your remarks that defend AOL. ''I'd rather have AOL than some plain old dial-up connection ISP'' Get dsl if you dont want some plain old dial-up connection isp. Dsl not available in your area or cable, try satallite. Anything better then the 'ol 56k. But I shall counterdict all of your remarks. ''AOL's browser looks better than Internet Explorer/Netscape'' It does? It looks bloated to me and probably quite insecure. Try Mozilla, it's skinnable and has many features you can add to it with plugins. ''has chat rooms, instant messages, newsgroups'' Yeah them chatrooms you can find on Yahoo Messenger too. Though chatrooms are complete garbage so why someone whos gone through puberty would want to go there is beyond me. Newsgroups you can access with any POP mail account and a mail client(try Mozillas). And standalone instant messenger programs are quite easy to find. Why you can even download Aol Instant Messenger and talk to the people who are foolish to still use AOL. ''has that pleasant 'Welcome', 'You've got E-mail' and 'Goodbye'' Thats quite annoying to me. How someone can actually find that pleasent if amazing. Although I have nothing against ya Mark I just cant stand someone defend AOL since I think it's a terrable ISP. ::Is the Wikipedia really a place to tell someone you think their ISP "SuXx0Rs"? Both sides of that debate belong somewhere besides an encyclopedia. ==AOL owned by Time Warner?== I thought that AOL and Time Warner merged. Is saying Time Warner owns AOL any more accurate than saying AOL owns Time Warner? They are one company. Thoughts objections...? BrokenSegue\">User:BrokenSegue">User:BrokenSegue|BrokenSegue\">User:BrokenSegue 23:46, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC) :No objection, per se. Here's a more detailed answer to your question, but it contains significant chunks of non-neutral POV. Cut, paste, and edit as you like for inclusion in the article proper. :-> :When the two companies initially began talks, both sides were open to almost any configuration of the final deal, according to the earliest participants. They were equally comfortable with TWX acquiring AOL or vice versa. Or various forms of "strategic partnership agreements", or just about anything else you can think of. They decided on AOL acquiring TWX and that was the deal that was implemented. :Accordingly, on the merger's effective date, TWX was no longer traded on the stock exchange, only AOL was traded. The now-merged company paid all owners of TWX stock using AOL stock as payment. The former AOL boss was one notch higher on the organization chart than the former TWX boss, and the two boards of directors merged into one. :Sadly, there are a great number of people on the Internet whose perception of AOL is governed by an angry bias towards AOL subscribers and lack of information about how the thing really works. A similar angry bias against the merger began dominating much of the public discourse about the AOL/Time-Warner merger even before it was completed. By the time that federal and shareholder approval finally came through for the merger and it was implemented, the stock market was on the brink of going south from "the dotcom craze" to "the dotbomb crash". Shareholders in the now-merged company were angry and looking for someone to blame, and of course, the favorite scapegoat for the merger was AOL's brass instead of Time-Warner's. My personal guess is the shareholders should have been most angry at the stockbrokers who made all kinds of extremely improper -- but only implied -- promises that the new stock was going to make them rich. :With the zillions of small shareholders (who are typically less sophisticated and informed investors than the big shareholders, who invest as a full-time profession) just wanting someone to blame, the stage was set for the top management structure of the old Time-Warner to start taking over full control of the company by displacing any top AOL management from positions of influence they had within the company. In the space of eighteen months or so, this was accomplished, with old AOL brass being kicked out of the company or keeping their jobs but having the job responsibilities changed to only control the AOL division of the company instead of the entire AOL/Time-Warner company. :The process was complete; AOL had paid for the merger and "acquired" Time-Warner, but it was now the Time-Warner management who controlled the company. Some months later, the final seal was put on this fact by announcing that the new company was changing its stock symbol from AOL to...drum roll please..to TWX. :It seems clear to many close observers that the company is now in the process of stripping most of the portable assets of the AOL division and killing any major new investments in it, in order to sell off the division to whomever is willing to buy it. That whomever may well end up being small investors on the stock market, if they spin the AOL division off to become an independent company with its own publicly traded shares of stock. Presumably traded under the AOL ticker symbol. :If, at that point, any CompuServe employees survive from the years when CompuServe was owned by H&R Block, before AOL bought it from H&R, who can blame them for seeing irony in how the tale ends? Or call it karma, if it pleases. :-I still haven't worked up the initiative to create a wikipedia username 01:30, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC) ---- Hmm, this article isn't that much bigger than a stub, considering the importance of AOL as a business story, as a significant part of tens of millions of lives, and a significant and ongoing part of the evolution of this Internet that we're using right now. We need more sections. And its already obvious that NPOV is harder to come by specifically because AOL is a significant part of so many lives and a of the Internet. I'll add some seeds and maybe a suggested outline later, but it will probably be a few days. --I still haven't created a wikipedia user account :-< == Hardly NPOV == ''It is also ironic that so many of the unprovoked and vitriolic attacks flames written against AOL users are in themselves violations of the spirit and letter of netiquette. Despite these ironies, there remain a large number of persons using the Internet who adamantly promote the point of view that AOL users are somehow both inferior and a problem and many who will vigorously attempt to persuade people to abandon AOL for this reason alone, and switch to some other provider.'' Don't you agree? I admit AOL's stigma is worth discussing, but whoever wrote this engaged in a relatively biased disparaging of the people who dislike AOL. This seems less of an Encyclopedic declaration and more of an Editorialized Ad-Hominem Tu Quoque. America Online does have some faults, such as its proprietary log-on method which does not use the standard Dial-Up Networking Protocol. - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kade Kade] == AOL and Legal Issues == I think there should be a section on the amount of legal stuff that AOL has been involved in. I use the word 'stuff' deliberately because AOL has helped to make and shape laws as well as defending themselves in a court of law. I'd start writing this section myself except that I just can't remember the specifics very well. The only thing I can remember with any clarity is the class action lawsuit filed by Observers.net against AOL in the name of AOL's community leaders. The beef was that AOL should have been paying the Community Leaders because they were doing the same sort of work expected of paid employees.User:*Kat* 02:06, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC) == Pop culture == I just started the America Online and Pop Culture section. I intend to expand it to be much more than what it currently is. As a teenager who never had a social life, the Internet was a Big Deal when I first signed on and I took to it and its chatrooms like a fish to water. So most of my contributions will deal with the chatrooms, message boards, and Community Leader program.User:*Kat* 02:46, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC) :The Internet is a "Big Deal" to me, too, but I've never regarded "the Internet" as having anything whatsoever to do with the cheesy, proprietary online service that is the subject of this article. User:Dtobias 16:19, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC) :: AOL was/is the first/only Internet experience for millions of people - all of whom are much less cool than the previous poster, it seems, or at least it seems that way to the previous poster - and so its influence on many areas, including pop culture, is certainly worthy of an article. - User:DavidWBrooks 20:28, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
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