On Monday we posted a leaked screenshot showing a redesigned AOL homepage that included integration with third party email services (Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo Mail), personalized bookmarks linking anywhere, integration with third party social networks (Facebook and MySpace) and a RSS reader.
The screenshot was genuine, and AOL is now rolling out some of these features. The major email competitors are all now included on the top right of the AOL.com home page, which reaches 105 million people worldwide each month (Comscore July 2008). The changes are described here in detail.
This is a clear acknowledgment that AOL is no longer a walled garden, something it’s users (at least the ones not on dial up) figured out some time in the last millennium.
But credit where credit is due – none of the other major Internet sites give direct access to competing services directly from their main home page. AOL continues to push forward and try new things.
Look for the other changes in yesterday’s screenshot to go live in October – Bookmarks, social networks and a RSS reader, all on the home page. AOL says they will also be inserting direct inks to third party news sources via Relegence, a company they acquired in 2006 and began integrating into AOL Finance in late 2007.
Mike, you missed an “L” in direct “inks”. Great catch.
So who is the rat in AOL who leaked this out?
http://www.hell...the-rat-in-aol/
The AOL portal is still lame. Why do people even use this portal I do not know.
Anti, I would mostly agree with you but I can see a use case for myself. I use both GMail and Yahoo Email and this portal would give me one place to check both. That being said I mostly use GMail and check Yahoo Mail very rarely.
It’s def an improvement over their current/previous portal that 105 Million people use.
We should give them credit for trying something new, unlike Yahoo.
But if you already use Gmail, you could just as well use iGoogle as your portal and add the gmail and yahoo widgets there.
More like AOL “Drops it Skirt” than “Pulls the Trigger”. Just another desperate attempt to do anything to appear still in the game. like when they bought BeBo for 850 mill as there market value plummets. AOL should be Fined for all the waste they produced from spamming cd sign up disks in fancy packages around the world. Imagine the mountain of WASTE they produced. You are what you push and What goes around comes around.
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The AOL portal is still lame. Why do people even use this portal I do not know.
AOL is a traditional tube light which always lit after some time. May be this will help aol but I think don’t think so. One day aol will find that all users of them simply left them.
I will give credit where credit is due, the screenshots from Monday that demonstrate the new aol.com (lifestreaming, mail aggregation, RSS, etc) is a tremendous step forward not only for AOL but portals as this will force yahoo and msn do follow AOL’s lead (can’t believe I am typing that).
I don’t think anyone here in the Valley would have predicted AOL would make such a bold move. I know I am shocked.
I for one did not believe the leaked aol.com shots were real given the radical change and the fact it was so smart. No way AOL would do it I thought.
Amazed and actually glad as I think such bold moves will only drive other mass audience sites to adopt some of the ground AOL has carved out here for themselves. Others offer these services but no one near their scale.
Impressive in my view
Damn. Agree with Michael they broke down the walled garden a bit ago but here they are burning it to the ground with the demonstrable move to open up the portal to third party services, features and content.
Power moves by AOL. Never would have thought it. I have to assume all the speculation on the future of the company fired them up and they just went for it.
What else would have drove such a radical departure of approach to the portal.
The AOL portal is still lame. Why do people even use this portal I do not know.
AOL is like M$, they ass-rape their customers all the time then they wonder why we hate them so much.
I rather inhale asbestos than touching an AOL property with a stick
aol rush to china
http://www.iceb.../post/1018.html
the home page:http://cn.aol.com
This is undeniable a bold and smart move by AOL whose ramifications are yet to understood in my view. This is going t have dramatic downstream impacts on many third party services and web sites.
This means they don’t have more relevant stuff to offer on their homepage and giving their competitors a space on their front page.
I gotta say, my initial response to the new portal wasn’t one of complete revulsion.
Way to go AOL
The MyYahoos/MyAOLs and iGoogles are just too much for most people to set-up, and once you’ve got’em working they’re FUGLY as hell.
This still Promos AOL content, but lets you tweak your Channels Bar, and check multiple E-mail Service Providers. It’s actually been done for a long time by Portals that didn’t have as much native content, but this is a first for the big Portals.
Not bad for a company fighting for relevance in the face of growing managerial indifference.
Y’know perhaps you’re not so bad after all AOL. Not so bad, but still not so good
you misspelled Links. You forgot to put “L”
Now I would have one reason to go to AOL.com. It might be a little too late, but it’s good to see them trying to catch up.
Cool move. Will be really impressed if they implement everything that the leaked screenshot showed.
Who wants to sign into a bunch of different email accounts?
Nothing AOL can do is going to save it. The only thing that they have that even stands out is AIM. I think its cool that they are making these changes, but it feels a little too late.
October portal launch along with more layoff’s in that month. This design is old as well. This was the design (not exactly this design but the same idea, just a different look, I even started to code it up!) prior do the Ron and Randy regime. They nixed it and called everyone nuts for even thinking of it then, Ron said the infamous “Make it like yahoo” quote and then ran around saying “portals have been figured out, we’re not copying, we’re improving on an existing model”. Hope he’s been relegated…
Other ‘portals’ have already done just about everything displayed in this screenshot. iGoogle and MyYahoo allow users to add widgets that effectively “open” their platforms by creating cross-network access. The difference here is that Google is already established with the targeted demo. and Yahoo (imho) has higher quality content.
AOL should stick to their strong areas; AIM, Platform A and old folks who like the sound of dial-up.
Interesting AOL is not big at all in AU . I like gmail but I am concerned Google is stepping into every market online now just like Microsoft did with software
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