AOL Finds An Obvious Use For WOW.com: A World Of Warcraft Social Network

Trackbacks/Pings (Trackback URL)

1. associatedcontent.com/article/399988/weight_loss_supplement_diet_program.html
   

   October 2nd, 2007 at 4:21 am

   It is so depressing how AOL, who for about a decade was among the top largest internet company, as well as the most revered and coveted online business suddenly imploded and is now a shell of its former self.

   What are they up to these days?

   How could a multi-billion dollar corporation company like that with many assets including several million subscribers disintegrate like that? What a pity.

2. IT News Sweden What.se
   

   October 2nd, 2007 at 4:23 am

   Shouldn’t this have been done like, 2005-2006?

3. Zidane
   

   October 2nd, 2007 at 4:32 am

   I though WoW was already a social network, no?

4. lawrence
   

   October 2nd, 2007 at 5:11 am

   i agree with #2 - a W.o.W. site seems like the most logical choice right now for that domain, but what took so long to implement that decision?
   the typical big, slow corp. i guess

   for that good of a domain name, however, the site should be made into more of a mainstream mass site

5. Richard Corsale
   

   October 2nd, 2007 at 6:01 am

   you know, if it were owned by someone (i.e. you or I) other than AOL , Blizzard would have taken the domain name under the DMCA.

   -Richard

6. Dario Salvelli
   

   October 2nd, 2007 at 6:23 am

   I Know that is Off Topic but i haven’t another way.

   I want to signal to Techcrunch and the readers the Free Burma! day of all bloggers around the world: http://www.free-burma.org .

   Please partecipate.

   Thanks.

7. smith
   

   October 2nd, 2007 at 7:03 am

   If I owned that domain, I would put in big bold white text over a black background “NERD ALERT!” with a bazillion google ads like techcrunch.

8. Frank Gruber
   

   October 2nd, 2007 at 7:08 am

   Sounds like a great use of the domain to me.

9. Richard Miller
   

   October 2nd, 2007 at 7:52 am

   enough with the social networks already! It’s become like hell. Every 2 seconds a new one pops up.

10. Mike Rundle
    

    October 2nd, 2007 at 8:45 am

    “It is so depressing how AOL, who for about a decade was among the top largest internet company, as well as the most revered and coveted online business suddenly imploded and is now a shell of its former self.”

    A shell of its former self…. because it’s trying to make money by providing content instead of still tricking rural America into paying $30 for dialup Internet? They may not be making more money now, but at least they’re doing it in a slightly more honest fashion.

11. phenom
    

    October 2nd, 2007 at 9:29 am

    wow they realized it so soon
    http://vidsonly.blogspot.com

12. zizi
    

    October 2nd, 2007 at 9:31 am

    if you play wow you dont have time to shower let alone a social nerdworking site.
    plus like some people already have said, wow is a social nerdworking site.
    it has been a pleasure watching AOL crash and burn.

13. Steve Ballmer
    

    October 2nd, 2007 at 9:38 am

    Now this takes an uber-nerd!

14. Gamer2.0
    

    October 2nd, 2007 at 9:39 am

    Check out the GGL (Global Gaming League - http://www.ggl.com). This is the ESPN of video gaming, with a social twist.

15. Billy
    

    October 2nd, 2007 at 9:47 am

    If AOL decides to use wow.com in any relation to World of Warcraft, we are bound to see lawsuits from Blizzard to get that coveted domain.

16. zack
    

    October 2nd, 2007 at 10:30 am

    this is flippin’ idiotic. WOW is a social network.

17. Jason
    

    October 2nd, 2007 at 10:41 am

    Please just go away AOL.

18. Michael
    

    October 2nd, 2007 at 2:12 pm

    I play WOW several times a week, and I can tell you there is almost zero use for a WOW social network.

    First off, during the game i can interact all I want with my guildies (the people I most want to interact with ) or my friends ( who are very likely to be guildies as well ). I can chat with them, email them, quest with them, raid with them, cyb0rsex them, whatever.

    Outside of the game, there are few things I need to monitor and most of them are taken care of by guild forums. Probably the best site i’ve seen in a while for helping with guild forums, maintainence, etc is dkpsystem.com

    Other sites that give me info on items, quests, etc are useful, and there are other forums (including blizzard sponsored ones) where WOW related discussions take place.

    In summary, introducing a WOW social network at this point is :
    1) way too late
    2) A waste of time
    3) see #1 and #2

    They better come up with some amazing stuff on this site to make it worth browsing, or the only traffic you are going to get is accidental.

19. Jeff Clavier
    

    October 2nd, 2007 at 4:10 pm

    The most obvious thing they could have done until now is to redirect wow.com onto wowinsider.com, one of the top blogs of Weblogs Inc. - an AOL company last time I checked.

    For the Alliance!

20. Bill G
    

    October 2nd, 2007 at 4:24 pm

    I think it all depends on the idea/execution of what a “WoW Social Network” means.

    Have all the ways of creating value among the WoW community been found? Not a chance.

    Is a giant corporation like AOL is going to create a site of some value to the WoW community? Highly unlikely, but not impossible.

21. Tribulus Kre-Alkalyn
    

    October 2nd, 2007 at 6:42 pm

    fine idea but WOW is a social network…

22. Marah Marie
    

    October 2nd, 2007 at 7:21 pm

    “fine idea but WOW is a social network…”

    No, I’m afraid it’s a search engine now. You heard it here first:

    http://anti-aol.livejournal.com/44304.html

23. Yishan
    

    October 2nd, 2007 at 8:47 pm

    The first comment in this thread is astoundingly clueless and indicative of exactly why AOL died.

24. Rune W. Ecklon
    

    October 3rd, 2007 at 6:15 am

    There is room for social networks etc outside of wow itself. Look at the Armory by blizzard. It gives people a host of useful infoss that arent available ingame unless you wanna go and manually get it from each player in the game.

25. Joe
    

    October 3rd, 2007 at 7:28 am

    Personally, I’ve actually thought that a WoW social network would be a good idea for a while now. Yes, I realize that it’s a social game, but that doesn’t make it a social network. When I’m playing the game, I want to…play the game. Call me crazy. It’s not too often that I stand around in a city in the game or whatever and just chat or check people’s gear, or whatever.

    A social network would be able to bring the ability to look up the type of information found in the Armory, as well as sites like Thottbot and Wowhead, together with the ability to send email to your in-game friends without the need to be on a certain character or server when you may in fact have friends that cross those boundries, as well as get to know them a little better outside of the game.

    It’s not that you CAN’T do these things by simply playing. A social network would simply make it EASIER. I’ll definitely be checking it out.

26. Brooke
    

    October 4th, 2007 at 8:58 am

    Of course there is room for MMORPG related social networks outside the games themselves. Most people are so addicted to these kinds of games that they dream about them every minute they aren’t actually playing them.

    That means people will go online from work, vacation, or even when the game servers are down just to get a taste of their Crack. It will be enough to tide them over until they can get themselves home and plug back in…

27. Warli
    

    October 25th, 2007 at 12:25 am

    Arent they a bit late for this? The big WoW hype has been a year ago and player numbers are declining.