I was on AOL from July 1994 - Feb. 2001 or so.
Hey, I discovered the Doper community through the big brain on AOL, so I have a lot of love for the old AOL, with its keywords and exclusive content.
Does AOL still run an online service outside the world wide web, so to speak? Does it still have its keyword system and its various AOL only content?
If so, what do they still have? What does it look like? Does anyone here have it?
My mother still has the dialup service. It’s still alive and kicking!
What is it like? What do they offer?
Familiarity.
What?
You can just look at www.aol.com to get an idea. That is mainly just a dumbed down portal with AOL content although it is technically part of the web. Combine that with their proprietary software and that is what AOL is these days. It isn’t separate from the internet as whole anymore.
AOL’s definitely part of the internet, but I think the OP is asking whether they still maintain the content that’s only accessible through their proprietary software. They did have it as of early 2007, but I can’t say what’s changed since then.
AOL recently sponsored some music sessions. Weezer recorded some videos for them: http://music.aol.com/video/butterfly-sessions/weezer/bc:47103017001
That doesn’t answer the question. All of this stuff is available on AOL’s website, as far as I can tell. The question is whether AOL still maintains their proprietary, non-web content which is available only though their software.
Exactly. I’m wondering if AOL still runs their own off the web stuff, like Prodigy and CompuServe had for a long time.
There were two types of proprietary things on AOL’s site. One were the AOL groups. These are no more. The other were special interfaces to mainframe programs like the Sabre Airline reservation system. Again, those are no more.
AOL started getting rid of these services a few years after they “opened up” Internet access to AOL. This was in the days before the World Wide Web, and the most common thing people did on the Internet were the USENET groups.
I remember the first few months when AOL members had access to these groups. We suddenly got messages like “Hi! I live in Springfield. Anyone else from Springfield” on things like the comp.unix.shell group.
With access to the USENET groups, the need for the proprietary AOL groups faded. The USENET groups had more people and livelier conversations. By the late 1990s, the Web took off, and there was no longer a need for the special AOL interfaces to the various services they use to offer, and those were shut down too.
I find it hard to believe that AOL is still around. After all, what services do they offer that you can’t get elsewhere for free?
I actually still have an AOL account, and yes, for the record, going through the stand-alone desktop application, the old groups (keywords, message boards, etc) seem to be defunct.
More than a little sad, really. I still remember my first web browser…“America Online Web Browser 1.0.” For Mac. I think you’d have better luck viewing web sites these days with one of those homebrew systems that hobbyists built out of C64 parts than that poor old thing.
I still have an AOL account, though I haven’t used the software in over a year. I keep it solely because I’ve had the same e-mail address since 1995 (I get my e-mail via their web-based e-mail interface).
My wife still does use the AOL software to get online, but she’s sort of a technophobe, and would rather not have to learn how to do something differently.