Free Internet site: A portal to AOL's future?

To offset a steady loss of subscribers, America Online is trying to reinvent itself with a free Internet portal.
The New York Times

The story "Free Internet site: A portal to AOL's future?" published June 3, 2005 at 7:06 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[Earl Benser]

I'd hate to think that any rational internet user cares

AOL has been, and will continue to be a garbage site, trying to be
everything for everybody, and accomplishing virtually nothing as a
result. AOL's time has come and gone. There are too many quality
alternatives available through local dial-up, DSL, and Cable ISP's.
And these ISP's are so much better on the basic conenctivity than
AOL that there is no contest, except among the unaware.

AOL has thrived off of user naivete'. Maybe now the users are
getting smart.

[NWLB]

About right.

I don't see anything new in what they are trying to do, just re-wrapping what they have tried already, or what they were trying to do five years ago.

There isn't anything worth paying AOL for they alone have. All the talk about video really isn't that impressive. There are ample video clips on AOL right now that aren't an extra charge. The last I checked, CNN is all but giving up on extra charges for video, so of course it makes sense another division of the same company is now trying to charge for it. Does anybody at AOL have any idea what the rest of the company is doing at any point in time?

NWLB
****
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.nwlb.net" target="_newWindow">http://www.nwlb.net</a>

[sanenazok]

you know you have a problem

when common career advice is not to use your e-mail address. Just the other day, a local morning show had career tips, one of them was not to use "cutsey" e-mail addresses, the other was not to use an @aol.com address.

So if you want a job you can't be an AOL user, or you have to be a closeted one. Ok, that's going too far, but it shows you what a rep this company's users have.

[aabcdefghij987654321]

AOL?

I thought AOL was done and gone. No one that I know uses AOL anymore. Back in the '90s, almost everyone I knew used them, but cheaper (Juno) and better (broadband) alternatives came along and most people have shifted. I would imagine that the only people left using it are the extremely naive. With SBC offering DSL for $15 a month, what sense does it make to pay $24 a month for pokey dial-up access. Furthermore, what is AOL for Broadband? Why would anyone pay $15 a month for AOL without internet access? This pricing scheme seems backwards to me. The dial-up access should cost $15/month. AOL with broadband access should be $24/month. Additionally, running a free portal requires visitors to your site to generate advertising revenue. Who visits AOL.com besides people who already subscribe?