Talk:AOL/Archive 3

"On 31 October 2008, the Hometown/FTP and AOL Journal website hosting services were eliminated"
The page contains the above, but no explanation or introduction is given: What is/was Hometown? (Don't explain here, add it to the main page!) CapnZapp (talk) 12:42, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

additional controversies
Shouldn't the fact that the way AOL works limited who could use it be mentioned? What I am referring to is, for example, it was not technically possible to play the Sega Dreamcast online with AOL because of the require software, where as a similar simple dial up company without software could easily connect with the game console. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.101.72.59 (talk) 11:45, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

SpyZapper gone.
I logged on to the AOL software today and got a message that SpyZapper has been discontinued. 76.179.147.161 (talk) 16:12, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Apparently other AOL services are supposed to be closed on Dec. 31, 2008, too. This article really needs more detail as to why all this is happening. In fact there are several blogs out there openly questioning why AOL hasn't really explained why Hometown and the Journals were shut down. 23skidoo (talk) 16:23, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

AIM Mail users to be charged?
In 2008, AOL announced to AIM Mail users they would be charged for the before-free service they were provided with.

Is this even true? Because I don't remember AOL announcing it. Princess Homestar (talk) 20:14, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Archive request
archiveme

--Crackthewhip775 (talk) 00:14, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Elonka 07:01, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Hometown?
The article mentions the elimination of Hometown but not what it was. Shinobu (talk) 17:02, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Be bold applies here, I think. 23skidoo (talk) 05:19, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

AOL seems to terminating all its Message Boards and Maybe Chats
Aol seems to be deleating Message Boards and maybe Chats. Is this coporate planning?Andreisme (talk) 19:30, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

AOL Keywords
Why doesn't this article mention AOL keywords? It mentions the "walled garden" concept but failed to mention AOL's proprietary "keyword" system. I looked through the discussion archives and it looks like keywords were mentioned at one time (2005) but they must've disappeared since. Drunauthorized (talk) 15:25, 21 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Go for it. Thanks, SqueakBox talk 16:23, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Contradiction Tag
While working through the back log, a contradiction tag was placed in the article according to: 21:24, 3 August 2008 69.140.152.55 (talk) (51,408 bytes). No contradiction can be found or has not been identified either in the archived talks, or on this current talk page. I've read through the section marked for contradiction and can only surmise the person posting the contradiction was talking about the 2 different headquarters for AOL. A quick on-line search revealed there were indeed two different headquarters in 2007 so the contradiction tag has been removed. If you feel this tag has been removed erroneously, please feel free to re-add it, but please also make a notation here as to what the contradiction may be to assist future backlog workers. Thanks much for all your hard work on this article! Kjnelan (talk) 00:04, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

What caused the Decline?
Unless I missed it, I don't think there's a single mention in the entire article of why AOL's subscriber base declined so dramatically. Can someone write up something on this? -- [ Dario D. ]   06:44, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Merge proposal
The page AOL Broadband was created on 16 July 2009. It consists of one sentence ("AOL Broadband is a UK internet service provider, which is part of the TalkTalk Group.") and cites no sources. It does not seem to merit its own page, and its content could easily be included at AOL. Cnilep (talk) 17:37, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

AOL (a United States company) and AOL Broadband (a United Kingdom company, owned by The Carphone Warehouse) are two entirely different companies, albeit with similar names. To merge AOL with AOL Broadband would be no different from merging Austria with Australia. Qwerta369 (talk) 23:44, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't a more apt comparison be "merging BP with BP Canada"? When I search for "AOL Broadband" using Google, the first hit (actually, all of the first ten hits) is to the US company, but that may be due to the fact that I have a North American IP address. Cnilep (talk) 22:05, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Not really, because BP and BP Canada may have the same parent company. AOL and AOL Broadband are entirely separate.  The only similarity is the name.  It would be very inappropriate, therefore, to merge an article on two companies, simply because their names are similar.  I agree that AOL Broadband is a very short article and is in desperate need of expansion.Qwerta369 (talk) 09:21, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Have you actually checked, AOL Broadband uses AOL's logo - http://www.aolbroadband.co.uk/ how can they be entirely different companies? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 157.161.133.225 (talk) 14:56, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
 * AOL Broadband uses AOL's logo under a licence agreement. Once again, the two companies remain totally seperate. Qwerta369 (talk) 17:36, 9 September 2009 (UTC)


 * What I would do is take bits of this article that has something to do broadband (internet) and put it in AOL BROADBAND. Bo98 (talk) 19:17, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Dear AOL campaign
It should be noted that the referenced "hundrets" of signatures in the article do not reflect the 45'837 signatures present on DearAOL.com. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 157.161.133.225 (talk) 14:58, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Needs a complete rewrite
This page is currently a hodgepodge of different concepts and is largely being used as a soapbox; it needs to be rewritten entirely, and probably split up into separate articles on the company and the main AOL client software (which is, ridiculously, almost unmentioned right now). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:12, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I second that motion
AOL has been recognized as one of the worst consumer software in the history of the computer. Little is mentioned of the extremely unfriendly and intrusive and resource hogging GUI of the client app. Not to mention their modifications to the registry and operating system. While it enabled newbies to get "online", there have always been better options. I am obviously not a AOL supporter, and perhaps like Microsoft it is a company that we all love to hate, but the article fails to bring out the depth of the damage their software did to any user's computer operations and the difficulties of removing the software once installed. All done by design. The fall of Compuserve was the good guys selling out to their evil twin. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.173.141.129 (talk) 19:55, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Why in the sections about the company's history and growth does the text basically skip from 1996 to 2004? There's a ton of information missing from those years about the many regulatory and legal disasters the company got itself into. It was sued by its own shareholders for racketeering, wire fraud, insider trading (ever wonder how their "profits" managed to double every single quarter without fail?) It was fined $500 million by the Securities & Exchange Commission for its accounting practices, which basically wiped out any profit the company had made in its entire existence to that point. One of its own in-house attorneys was caught stalking a young boy online and then assaulting him near AOL headquarters in Virginia. Child pornography on AOL and the company's abysmal lack of response and effort to combat it were a major issue. The company never had as many paid subscribers as it claimed to have. Ever. Not even close. It counted people using their free 30-day trial account as paid subscribers...always did and probably still does. This article needs a rewrite, yes, but it needs to include everything. Unklscrufy (talk) 08:03, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

AOL is not "America Online"
AOL changed its name from America Online over 3 years ago. AOL, LLC is the OFFICIAL name and its now an LLC company.

I already changed it, but it got reverted back. I can't believe it has went unnoticed this long. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Micwa (talk • contribs) 04:30, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

AOL not Aol
Despite the recent logo change, the name of AOL is still AOL (uppercase), not Aol. Qwerta369 (talk) 11:12, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Description
Do not confuse "Description" and "History". The merge with Times Warner is history, not a description. Macaldo (talk) 10:18, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

AOL News?
AOL News redirects here but this aspect of the company's operation isn't mentioned in the article. Can someone add information about AOL News? JamesMLane t c 23:08, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Established in 1985 not 1983
AOL was founded in 1985 not 1983. MarySmythson (talk) 23:44, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Newest subscriber & revenue data
Because I was bored, I dug up the Q4 2010 report -. I'm sure it'd make a nice addition to the graph of users. Looks like they're under 4 million at the moment, and continuing to decline. From here you can access all the released reports:. Hope this is helpful! Mokele (talk) 16:46, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Bias in opening paragraph?
All kinds of terms such as "leading-edge" that sound nice in an executive summary but don't work on Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.163.250.68 (talk) 23:57, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Dead link
During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!


 * http://cityguide.aol.com/
 * In Jim Carr (education) on 2011-05-08 17:54:59, Socket Error: 'getaddrinfo failed'
 * In AOL on 2011-06-20 00:49:18, Socket Error: 'getaddrinfo failed'

--JeffGBot (talk) 00:50, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Password protection and spam
A friend has had his AOL account hacked, and it has been spamming me for nearly a year now. He says he can't change his password because he can't remember the credit card number he used years ago to join. I've heard AOL has its users addicted, and my friend may be one of those as he's sticking with AOL despite the spamming. I'll send him what the article has to say about Smathers, and hope some editor adds something to this article on how AOL handles passwords and hacking complaints. And maybe something on users being addicted to it.--Pawyilee (talk) 08:26, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

The Huffington Affect
When Conservative turned Liberal, Arianna Huffington took over AOL, we just about left as founding subscribers, but need one key service only they provide. Now we see the affect she and her policies have had on her upper management team. "Disgruntled top talent deserts AOL", by David Gelles in New York.. . . We should be watching. .!. Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 00:42, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Viruses
Viruses and spamming is found all over this site. If just starting out using please get it McAfee checked so rhat it will be safe to use. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.91.97.202 (talk) 07:05, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Why
does the word Urlesque mentioned as a blog redirects to this article?

Rominbayol (talk) 12:09, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Microsoft Buys 800 AOL Patents for $1 Billion
Where does this fit in this article:

Microsoft Buys 800 AOL Patents for $1 Billion

http://allthingsd.com/20120409/tim-armstrong-sells-his-beachfront-property-microsoft-buys-800-aol-patents-for-1-billion/ Ottawahitech (talk) 15:14, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Some suggestions for improving the article
Let me apologize if I any of the following suggestions are already in the article and missed them. Some may be deemed of not enough importance to go into detail about or even mention at all but I let others decide that: 1. The article really should have a picture of what the software looked like back when AOL was completely or largely a "Online service" and not just a ISP and web content creation company. 2. More detail would be nice about it's early days providing access to internet content. They did not offer TCP/IP access at first and required to you their proprietary gateways to internet services like Usenet, Gopher, and FTP. You could not use a TCP/IP internet software such as browsers or third party e-mail software. At that time they provide a special proxy service to the internet which is why you where limited to the internet services they provided built-in to their access software. They did not provide access to the web at first ether where regular dial-up users at the time could use any TCP/IP browser such as Netscape to access the web. Even when AOL did offer access to the web they did so via a very limited and slow custom built browser. Later they switched to a customized version of IE which erased some the severe limitations of their first browser but had it's own issues. Eventually they did of full TCP/IP access and later IMAP email access though you had to login via the full software, not just a simple dialer, at least for many years. 3. AOL in the mid-late 90's had a issue with the way they censored words in their chat rooms that caused some uproar at the time. Essentially it was a a case of theScunthorpe problem where thy where censoring potentially foul or sexual words without taking into account their context. I.E. One example was the censoring of the term breast in breast cancer discussions, that got many people upset. 4. Back when AOL was still offering pay-by-the-hour service as their primary service, their was a controversy over the fact that often required heavy downloads of images and such as you visited certain forums and pages while being charge for the wait for this content to download. AOL responded to the complaints by agreeing to exempt the content/user interface icon downloads from hourly charge. 5. While the AOL CD's attracted a lot of hate for their pervasiveness and wastefulness, there are now collectors who collect them due to the any different designs and such on them. 6. AOL at some point in the late 90's offered a feature where you could use their software with a regular ISP, logging into AOL over TCP/IP rather then dialing them up directly using their proprietary protocol. You still payed the same subscription rate even if you didn't use their dial-up service to access AOL content. 7. The articles implies that AOL later offered broadband service but doesn’t make that clear. The did indeed offer broadband internet service at one time (maybe they still do for all I know) which was simply AOL branded standard TCP/IP-based internet service from a third-party ISP with access to AOL’s walled content included. The articles mention they raised the rates of their dial-up service to push people to get broadband service but doesn’t make it clear it’s their broadband offering they where pushing people towards not just any broadband ISP. --67.103.38.89 (talk) 10:55, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Some suggestions for imrpoving article
Let me apologize if I any of the following suggestions are already in the article and missed them. Some may be deemed of not enough importance to go into detail about or even mention at all but I let others decide that: 1. The article really should have a picture of what the software looked like back when AOL was completely or largely a "Online service" and not just a ISP and web content creation company.

2. More detail would be nice about it's early days providing access to internet content. They did not offer TCP/IP access at first and required to you their proprietary gateways to internet services like Usenet, Gopher, and FTP. You could not use a TCP/IP internet software such as browsers or third party e-mail software. At that time they provide a special proxy service to the internet which is why you where limited to the internet services they provided built-in to their access software. They did not provide access to the web at first ether where regular dial-up users at the time could use any TCP/IP browser such as Netscape to access the web. Even when AOL did offer access to the web they did so via a very limited and slow custom built browser. Later they switched to a customized version of IE which erased some the severe limitations of their first browser but had it's own issues. Eventually they did of full TCP/IP access and later IMAP email access though you had to login via the full software, not just a simple dialer, at least for many years.

3. AOL in the mid-late 90's had a issue with the way they censored words in their chat rooms that caused some uproar at the time. Essentially it was a a case of theScunthorpe problem where thy where censoring potentially foul or sexual words without taking into account their context. I.E. One example was the censoring of the term breast in breast cancer discussions, that got many people upset.

4. Back when AOL was still offering pay-by-the-hour service as their primary service, their was a controversy over the fact that often required heavy downloads of images and such as you visited certain forums and pages while being charge for the wait for this content to download. AOL responded to the complaints by agreeing to exempt the content/user interface icon downloads from hourly charge.

5. While the AOL CD's attracted a lot of hate for their pervasiveness and wastefulness, there are now collectors who collect them due to the any different designs and such on them.

6. AOL at some point in the late 90's offered a feature where you could use their software with a regular ISP, logging into AOL over TCP/IP rather then dialing them up directly using their proprietary protocol. You still payed the same subscription rate even if you didn't use their dial-up service to access AOL content.

7. The articles implies that AOL later offered broadband service but doesn’t make that clear. The did indeed offer broadband internet service at one time (maybe they still do for all I know) which was simply AOL branded standard TCP/IP-based internet service from a third-party ISP with access to AOL’s walled content included. The articles mention they raised the rates of their dial-up service to push people to get broadband service but doesn’t make it clear it’s their broadband offering they where pushing people towards not just any broadband ISP. --67.103.38.89 (talk) 10:57, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Job
I want to write job. Please give me a job. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.30.39.50 (talk) 07:57, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Acquisition of gdgt
Recently they've bought gdgt.com and are merging it with engadget.com. More info here: http://blog.gdgt.com/aol-adds-gdgt-to-its-have-list/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leapwill (talk • contribs) 01:13, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Coordinate error
The following coordinate fixes are needed for

—180.246.29.62 (talk) 01:32, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
 * ❌. You haven't specified any error, and the current coordinates are correct for the building at 770 Broadway in New York City, where AOL is headquartered. Deor (talk) 10:47, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Inconsistency
There is an inconsistency between when and what name AOL was founded under. The lead says 1985 as Quantum Computer Services, while the infobox says 1983 as Control Video Corporation. —  Diva    Knockouts   17:12, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Software suite?
Why is there no page on the AOL software suite? There are many aspects of its technology, timeline, and traffic that I'm curious about but it's practically unmentioned on Wikipedia, from what I can tell. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.108.119.166 (talk) 19:10, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

AOL history incorrect /missing
I was one of the first people on America Online. While it evolved from Quantum Link to PC Link, AppleLink etc. It was called "Promenade" before being named America Online. I remember getting email in my Quantumlink and PClink accounts announcing it. They also offered us a deal on America Online stock as charter members. I wish I had taken it as I would be rich now but I thought the internet would replace dial up services - not incorporate them.

Here's a reference I found that mentions Promenade.

http://technologizer.com/2010/05/24/aol-anniversary/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.155.154.89 (talk) 22:25, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

AOL Keywords
I don't see any coverage of AOL Keywords. I never used AOL, so I don't know exactly what mechanisms / interfaces were involved with this. But some ideas might be nice to cover, or whatever things that anyone knows anything about, and judges worthy for discussion: Just some thoughts. Have at it, folks! — Sburke (talk) 00:34, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * was an AOL keyword just a mundane network name-token (/^[a-zA-Z0-9][a-zA-Z0-9]*$/ i.e., starts with a letter, then has any number of digits and letters) or could there be spaces, dashes, whatever?
 * were they context sensitive?
 * were there some sort of keywords reserved for system use, like everything beginning with a "9"?
 * when did they start to appear in the system? when did they start being used in advertising?
 * ...and when did they disappear from advertising etc. I haven't seen an "AOL keyword: wubbawubba" in an ad in at the very least 2007.
 * did keywords ever actually disappear from the AOL interface?
 * was there a direct mapping to URLs (like, I dunno, a maybe keyword starting with "web=guh.com" could bounce you to "http://guh.com"? Or conversely, was there an "aol:thingy" in the AOL web browser that bounced you back to the system as if you had typed keyword "thingy"?
 * Maybe have a screencap of when you hit F5 (or went thru whatever menu choices) and here's the dialog box that comes up, where you feed in that keyword
 * How did you go about getting an AOL keyword? Presumably it wasn't an easy, free, and open process.
 * were AOL keywords used only to jump to particular "sites", or could they also jump to particular parts of the AOL system (like: would "chat" launch the chat system, as if you had navigated there via normal menus? ditto "help" etc
 * How did the appearance of the "Enter keyword here" interface change across different versions of AOL over the years?
 * What features were in keyword functionality from the beginning, vs was stuff added over time?

Merger Proposal
I propose merging Criticism of AOL with AOL to create one NPOV article. if the article becomes too long we can split it ways besides POV ( Criticism vs Non Criticism )Bryce Carmony (talk) 22:24, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on AOL. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20140714060513/http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/MapItDrawServlet?geo_id=16000US5179952&_bucket_id=50&tree_id=420&context=saff&_lang=en&_sse=on to http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/MapItDrawServlet?geo_id=16000US5179952&_bucket_id=50&tree_id=420&context=saff&_lang=en&_sse=on

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 08:22, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on AOL. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20121027155641/http://www.quora.com/AOL-History/How-much-did-it-cost-AOL-to-distribute-all-those-CDs-back-in-the-1990s to http://www.quora.com/AOL-History/How-much-did-it-cost-AOL-to-distribute-all-those-CDs-back-in-the-1990s

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 19:50, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Based in New Jersey?
The summary says AOL is based in NJ, but that's the only mention of that location, and the rest of the article either mentions Virginia or NYC. Is that an error?

Alaphona (talk) 04:38, 1 March 2016 (UTC)