The former America Online (as we knew it) is dead.
Once THE premiere online service provider, dialing into AOL with all the old school beep and sizzle sounds through a home telephone line is how we used to connect to the world. And we loved it. If you wanted to do anything on the “world wide web” from email to internet search, you needed someone to help get you there. And AOL was the choice of millions. It once grew so high and mighty that it even went out and bought cable provider Time-Warner, making its new moniker AOL-Time Warner, boss to CNN and more. But after a brief marriage that (we now know) was made in hell, Time-Warner sought a divorce from AOL citing irreconcilable differences. The divorce became final yesterday.
Now, complete with a new child-like rebranding (the old blue AOL “triangle” is no more) and a (supposedly) hip new name, Aol., as it’s now called, is single again and going it alone. Like a new divorcee getting a makeover to prepare for hitting the singles scene, Aol. is looking to find its way once again in an advanced tech heavy world. Or, to put it another way, it’s like a lone VCR sitting on the bottom sales shelf of a Best Buy store, still thinking SOMEONE really wants to buy it. Well good luck with that. Aol. says it wants to concentrate on media content and email services. Good luck with that too. With Google the new King of the Jungle, and other competition light years ahead of it, Aol. truly has an uphill battle for survival.
