Time Warner Votes To Spin Off AOLThe Internet's once-largest ISP continues its journey to the bottom... 10:14AM Thursday May 28 2009 by Karl Bodetags: legal · competition · business · contentAOL continues an interesting trip that took them from the most powerful ISP on the Internet, to a fractured and financially-troubled company with dreams of becoming an advertising giant. Of course most of their problems were caused by their inability to adapt to (or really in some cases even recognize) the broadband market -- something that was at least in part caused by a revolving door of executives, some of whom our users will recall went on to do not-so-amazing things with VoIP carrier SunRocket. At its peak, AOL served 26.7 million dial-up subscribers, but now serves just 6.3 million dial-up subscribers -- a total that's dropping daily. AOL's epic journey of dysfunction continues with the expected news that Time Warner has officially voted to spin the company off. Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes explains in the spinoff in the bubbly, optimistic way only a pre-scripted statement can: "We believe that a separation will be the best outcome for both Time Warner and AOL. The separation will be another critical step in the reshaping of Time Warner that we started at the beginning of last year, enabling us to focus to an even greater degree on our core content businesses. The separation will also provide both companies with greater operational and strategic flexibility. We believe AOL will then have a better opportunity to achieve its full potential as a leading independent Internet company." Time Warner announced last quarter that revenues at AOL have dropped 23% and they've lost 2.4 million customers in just the past year as dial-up (and BYOB) customers continue to flee. Former Google executive Tim Armstrong was announced as AOL's new CEO in March, and will be tasked with turning AOL around for what feels like the forty-seventh time.
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BlitzenZeus
Burnt Out Cynic
Premium,MVM
join:2000-01-13
Beaverton, OR
 ·Verizon FIOS
 ·Verizon Online DSL
| Goodbye AOHell I'm almost glad they didn't evolve, but they had no real ties into cable, or dsl providers so go beyond the antiquated dial-up business. They overcharged for it, and made it next to impossible to cancel at times. I'm amazed they still are surviving today in any capacity.
I won't miss them, and similar providers who required you install their special software to use their dial-up service. | |
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SLD
Premium
join:2002-04-17 | Re: Goodbye AOHell Too bad they're not taking TW with them. | |
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fireflier
Coffee. . .Need Coffee
Premium
join:2001-05-25
Limbo
 ·Skype
| Re: Goodbye AOHell said by v35_pilot  :said by woody7 :Time to just Die and go away............. As opposed to the non-Zombie inspiring scenario, "go away and die." OK, that almost made me blow coffee out my nose! 
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Tradition: Just because you've always done it that way doesn't mean it's not incredibly stupid. --despair.com | |
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woody7
Premium
join:2000-10-13
Torrance, CA | picky picky picky 
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BlooMe | |
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Matt
Gone playing Dragon Age Origins
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
·North State Commun..
| For all the fun technical people poke at AOL, they accomplished two things we should ALL be thankful for:
1) Unlimited Internet Connectivity for a fair price: $29.99 for unlimited dial-up forced other ISPs to match it, even though AOL didn't provide unfettered internet access until the end of their life.
2) It brought the masses to the internet. Once AOL started accepting email from the internet and allowing internet access to more than their walled garden, it made people a LOT more comfortable outside of AOL. | |
| | | cornelius785
join:2006-10-26
Worcester, MA | Re: Goodbye AOHell i agree. if the internet really ever had a marketer for the internet, i say it would be AOL. what other company sent out millions of free install discs? | |
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SLD
Premium
join:2002-04-17 | Re: Goodbye AOHell Except they tried to keep you in their own content zone. Internet access was ony added later. | |
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BlitzenZeus
Burnt Out Cynic
Premium,MVM
join:2000-01-13
Beaverton, OR
·Verizon FIOS
·Verizon Online DSL
| Well the prices at the end for unlimited dial-up internet were $10-20 at the most to try to keep their customers from broadband, some of the cheaper ones trying to show you additional adds while you browsed, hence my hatred for carriers like this.
Broadband started to be around dial-up prices plus the additional cost of a phone line so those were the first people to change to broadband since it was faster, and cost the same as having to pay for the second line also.
Then broadband became cheaper, some only held out due to forced packaging with tv services, or the felt they didn't want to pay more, however still had to deal with the annoying part of not being able to talk on the phone at the same time. If they paid for a second line, and dial-up at this point there was no help for them.
I have a feeling that the majority of dial-up users left are stuck with poor broadband coverage, they just haven't looked into the real cost of getting anything faster, or can't depend on a wireless cellular provider.
I helped somebody recently who was still using juno dial-up, and I ended up saving them money since they no longer had to pay for dial-up, along with their phone provider had a non-contract dsl/phone package for 1mbit/128kbit for the same price he was already for his single phone line. They would of had to buy a modem, but we had an old dsl modem laying around which worked perfectly for them, however this wasn't without a fight from the sales agents trying to push their faster services, we actually had to hang up as the first guy was being a jerk about it. The second guy actually gave us the package he wanted. It wasn't amazingly fast, we told him he could go must faster if he really wanted, but all he did was e-mail and browse the web anyway. I was honestly amazed they still used dial-up.
--
My hourly rates:
$25 per hour.
$35 per hour if you want to watch.
$45 per hour if you want to help.
$75 per hour if you tried to fix it, and failed.
$125 per hour if you called tech support, and didn't fix the issue while making things worse | |
| | | | robl27
Premium
join:2008-07-16
Mary Esther, FL | Re: Goodbye AOHell AOL was unique back in their hayday. Now, watch the masses go back to dial up once metered billing takes the stage and the average cable/dsl bill goes from $60 to $600 dollars a month.
-Rob | |
| | | Jonbo298
join:2004-01-12
Council Bluffs, IA | They did accomplish some good things for the time, unfortunately (actually fortunately), they didn't adapt to technology as it evolved and now they are where they are. | |
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Matt
Gone playing Dragon Age Origins
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
·North State Commun..
| Re: Goodbye AOHell said by CO_Chris :said by Matt :For all the fun technical people poke at AOL, they accomplished two things we should ALL be thankful for: 1) Unlimited Internet Connectivity for a fair price: $19.99 for unlimited dial-up forced other ISPs to match it, even though AOL didn't provide unfettered internet access until the end of their life. Fixed.. It was $29.99 when it was first offered, reduced to $19.99 much later. | |
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CO_Chris
Premium
join:2001-08-28
Broomfield, CO
 ·Comcast
·Earthlink Cable Mo..
·Comcast Digital Vo..
| Re: Goodbye AOHell said by Matt :said by CO_Chris :said by Matt :For all the fun technical people poke at AOL, they accomplished two things we should ALL be thankful for: 1) Unlimited Internet Connectivity for a fair price: $19.99 for unlimited dial-up forced other ISPs to match it, even though AOL didn't provide unfettered internet access until the end of their life. Fixed.. It was $29.99 when it was first offered, reduced to $19.99 much later. Not sure where you lived or what rock you lived under but it was 19.99 I just got a pc and it was a metered service back then just like CompuServe till the 19.99 Unlimited service came out. If you paid 29.99 you got FUKed | |
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Matt
Gone playing Dragon Age Origins
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
·North State Commun..
| Re: Goodbye AOHell said by CO_Chris :Not sure where you lived or what rock you lived under but it was 19.99 I just got a pc and it was a metered service back then just like CompuServe till the 19.99 Unlimited service came out. If you paid 29.99 you got FUKed As recently as 2005 it was $23.99 and dropped to $19.99.
»news.cnet.com/AOL-tests-waters-f···605.html
The Time Warner company has cut the price of its unlimited dial-up service to $19.95 a month from $23.90 for new U.S. subscribers who sign up within the next few weeks.
So again, when AOL announced their unlimited plan, it was $29.99 a month. You are mistaken. | |
| | | | | | | Zoder
join:2002-04-16
Miami, FL
| Re: Goodbye AOHell In 1996 they experimented with 20 for 20. 20 hours for $20. Then at the end of 96 they introduced full unlimited for $19.95. Then they raised it a few years later to 21.95 and it topped at 23.90.
It was never $29.99
»news.cnet.com/MSN-takes-on-AOL/2···613.html | |
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Matt
Gone playing Dragon Age Origins
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
·North State Commun..
| Re: Goodbye AOHell said by Zoder :In 1996 they experimented with 20 for 20. 20 hours for $20. Then at the end of 96 they introduced full unlimited for $19.95. Then they raised it a few years later to 21.95 and it topped at 23.90. It was never $29.99 » news.cnet.com/MSN-takes-on-AOL/2···613.html Looks like you and CO_Chris are correct. I was paying $29.99 for something with AOL however, it may have been an unlimited account and their BYOA. | |
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44402812
Hack The Planet
Premium
join:2006-08-28
Plattsburgh, NY
| said by Matt :For all the fun technical people poke at AOL, they accomplished two things we should ALL be thankful for: 1) Unlimited Internet Connectivity for a fair price: $29.99 for unlimited dial-up forced other ISPs to match it, even though AOL didn't provide unfettered internet access until the end of their life. 2) It brought the masses to the internet. Once AOL started accepting email from the internet and allowing internet access to more than their walled garden, it made people a LOT more comfortable outside of AOL. Number 2 is not necessarily a good thing  Some morons don't belong on the internet! | |
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cpucrash0
join:2003-05-24
Mcallen, TX
1 edit | said by Matt :For all the fun technical people poke at AOL, they accomplished two things we should ALL be thankful for: 1) Unlimited Internet Connectivity for a fair price: $29.99 for unlimited dial-up forced other ISPs to match it, even though AOL didn't provide unfettered internet access until the end of their life. 2) It brought the masses to the internet. Once AOL started accepting email from the internet and allowing internet access to more than their walled garden, it made people a LOT more comfortable outside of AOL. AOL wasn't the first to do unlimited dial-up. The first company to do it was a company called "WOW" That was the first company to do unlimited then aol started doing unlimited dial-up. It was a national ISP and part of compu-serve.. | |
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Jason Levine
Premium
join:2001-07-13
USA
| They're still surviving based on momentum. There are still people who think that AOL = Internet and they need to pay AOL's monthly fee to go online. Currently, I would say that there are around 6.3 million of these deluded souls. Luckily for them, though, a couple million of them wake up annually and free themselves from AOL's grip. At this rate, AOL should go belly up in 2012.
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-Jason Levine
Support a children's charity. Buy a calendar and/or a photo book. Shooting For A Cause | |
| | | | | | | | | patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
| said by Jason Levine :They're still surviving based on momentum. There are still people who think that AOL = Internet and they need to pay AOL's monthly fee to go online. Currently, I would say that there are around 6.3 million of these deluded souls. Luckily for them, though, a couple million of them wake up annually and free themselves from AOL's grip. At this rate, AOL should go belly up in 2012. Its like those people who still rent a Western Electric from AT&T. You can still do so today »www.qltcls.com/ | |
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aaronwt
Premium
join:2004-11-07
Woodbridge, VA
·Verizon FIOS
·Comcast
| I never used them I'm glad I never used them. I dropped my EROLS dialup in 1997 when I got my first cable modem.
I couldn't have imagined going back to dialup after getting those fast speeds twelve years ago. Which at 5mbsdown/1mbs up is still faster than many people have today. | |
| 
maartena
Stacked.
Premium
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA
·RoadRunner Cable
| AOHell can't die fast enough IMHO... I have loathed AOL ever since they had their own dialup protocol and browser, and everything needed to be compatible with their software, not the other way around. Yeah they finally switched to TCP/IP in the 2000s or so, but for me..... their reputation was already damaged beyond belief.
Die already, don't come back.
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"I reject your reality and substitute my own!" | |
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Josherrr
@comcast.net
| thank god i have been the tech guy for my family and friends for years and i hate aol with a passion aol and the spam/spyware that come with it will bring the fastest computer to a crawl and it took hours to cancel the service i hate aol... at a time people thought aol was the internet thank god those days are over | |
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Killa200
Premium
join:2005-12-02
Spring City, TN | GOODBYE! As a local computer technician, i am so going to jump for joy the day i hear the company closes its doors. Good riddance to AOHELL's software mess extravaganza that it places on customer's computers. | |
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44402812
Hack The Planet
Premium
join:2006-08-28
Plattsburgh, NY
| Re: GOODBYE! said by Killa200 :As a local computer technician, i am so going to jump for joy the day i hear the company closes its doors. Good riddance to AOHELL's software mess extravaganza that it places on customer's computers. Why? I love their software! The more idiots that f#$k up their computer with it the better. More money for me... | |
| | rob316
join:2005-10-17
Carteret, NJ | I myself as a local pc tech will also miss AOL. God all the money I made fixing pc's with AOL crapware. | |
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Jason Levine
Premium
join:2001-07-13
USA
| That's the reason I always hated them. Their software was notorious for digging itself deep into the host computer and being impossible to pull off with anything less than a reformatting.
--
-Jason Levine
Support a children's charity. Buy a calendar and/or a photo book. Shooting For A Cause | |
| bgraham
join:2001-03-15
Smithtown, NY
·Verizon FIOS
| I cannot believe Bewkes said this. Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes says:
"We believe AOL will then have a better opportunity to achieve its full potential as a leading independent Internet company."
What a crock. Let the thing die. I guess he can sell AOL for $30 or so on Ebay. | |
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Jason Levine
Premium
join:2001-07-13
USA
| Re: I cannot believe Bewkes said this. No, I agree with him. With Time Warner's backing, AOL wasn't crashing and burning to its full potential. I now expect to see a spectacular crash and burn like only a solo AOL company can perform.
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-Jason Levine
Support a children's charity. Buy a calendar and/or a photo book. Shooting For A Cause | |
| 
fatmanskinny
Premium
join:2004-01-04
Wandering | Is EarthLink going to buy AOL? Would be interesting to see what The Link would do after this announcement. | |
| | ISurfTooMuch
join:2007-04-23
Tuscaloosa, AL
| Re: Is EarthLink going to buy AOL? Nah, they won't do that, or at least they shouldn't. AOL brings nothing to the party. ELN already has enough POPs, so AOL is no help there. Subs? They could get those, sure, but I doubt the idiot execs at AOL will sell out for a price that makes this a bargain. And besides, EarthLink needs to move away from dialup as quickly as possible. The money needed to buy AOL needs to be spent on broadband development. Buying up some small cable companies and telcos would seem to be a better strategy for them. | |
| | | patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
| Re: Is EarthLink going to buy AOL? said by ISurfTooMuch :Nah, they won't do that, or at least they shouldn't. AOL brings nothing to the party. ELN already has enough POPs, so AOL is no help there. Subs? They could get those, sure, but I doubt the idiot execs at AOL will sell out for a price that makes this a bargain. Well AOL and Earthlink use the same dialup numbers, since they buy modem access from Level 3 »www.level3.com/index.cfm?pageID=49 . They would save money in renegotiating a new rate with Level 3 I would think. And buying subscribers is always a good growth strategy when your business model is moribund. | |
| ISurfTooMuch
join:2007-04-23
Tuscaloosa, AL
| And let's not forget... ...that this is the company that bought Netscape, the leading Web browser at the time, and managed to flush it right down the toilet. Of course, the train wreck that was Netscape 4.0 didn't help, but every application has a bad release at some point, but AOL didn't even seem to want to use the browser they bought, since I remember seeing IE bundled with their crapware even after the Netscape buy. | |
| stanlittle
join:2002-01-25
Cleveland, OH | Why is AOL still around Can someone tell me why is aol still around taking people money for crappy service, what do aol offer? Thanks Stan | |
| | ISurfTooMuch
join:2007-04-23
Tuscaloosa, AL
| Re: Why is AOL still around Several reasons.
1. People are creatures of habit. Unless they have some compelling (in their minds) reason to change, they often won't. I'd be willing to bet that many AOL subs are happy with their slow, overpriced service, never bothering to check to see if there are any better options.
2. Some people have had their AOL e-mail addresses for so long, they feel they need to keep them. Why? I have no idea, especially in a business situation, where I can't imagine why you'd want to use an AOL address, but this reason comes up a lot.
3. Sheer stupidity. I've seen cases where people have subscribed to another ISP to have access to AOL in an area where it didn't have a local POP, thinking that they still needed their AOL subscription to get access to the Internet. | |
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calvoiper
join:2003-03-31
Belvedere Tiburon, CA
| Re: Why is AOL still around On number 2, there are various printed sources of e-mail addresses which, one way or another, last forever--particularly business cards. In business, you may want someone who hasn't contacted you in a decade to contact you again if there is a business opportunity.
You may also have signed up for gosh knows how many websites using this e-mail. Yeah, you can change that--IF you remember every odd website you've logged in to. (Maybe you want that "returning customer" discount from customzipperinsults.com .)
AOL has a bring-you-own-broadband free option, so why not hang on to the e-mail?
calvoiper
--
VoIP--the death knell of remaining voice monopolies! | |
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KAD Imaging
Just Shoot It
Premium
join:2002-09-21
Hialeah, FL
·AT&T Southeast
| Re: Why is AOL still around said by calvoiper :AOL has a bring-you-own-broadband free option, so why not hang on to the e-mail? calvoiper Actually you can get access to you suckOL account through their direct webmail access sans the pc killing software. So...why??
--
Like Cars? Visit:
SportCompactMiami.com
My Flickr Gallery | |
| 
Bit
Premium
join:2009-02-19
00000
·VOIPo
·Cox HSI
| I miss all the free coasters Love that old quote of Hook's, "narrowband is going to be around forever". Perhaps, but $25/mo narrowband won't. Then after hosing the world's largest (by far) ISP's Broadband division she turned to wrecking SunRocket.
How this dummy finds employment in a field other than fast food preparation baffles me. What is even more baffling is this dope pulls in $1.3M a year. What a rip. I can wreck a successful company for just a fraction of that amount. I'm surprised Neustar puts her resume' online. Her record is nothing to be proud of. And if she ever gets a hold of the reigns at Neustar, it will be the day to sell sell sell because she is the only one who could mange to make number porting unprofitable.
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POKE 65495,1 | |
| | patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
| Re: I miss all the free coasters said by Bit :How this dummy finds employment in a field other than fast food preparation baffles me. What is even more baffling is this dope pulls in $1.3M a year. What a rip. I can wreck a successful company for just a fraction of that amount. I'm surprised Neustar puts her resume' online. Her record is nothing to be proud of. And if she ever gets a hold of the reigns at Neustar, it will be the day to sell sell sell because she is the only one who could mange to make number porting unprofitable. Blondes have more fun........... | |
| TransitJohn
join:2009-05-08
Laramie, WY | They should integrate w/ NetZero after the spinoff. Then buy Qwest's long haul fiber and offer long distance. | |
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NickD123
@rutgers.edu | No More AOL CDs Do you remember that someone was trying to collect a million AOL CDs? I wonder what happened with them. | |
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fios1
@verizon.net
| Re: No More AOL CDs The project was called No More AOL CDs and it along with the site was shut down in 2007. They collected over 410,000 CDs. Here's a cache from the Wayback Machine:
»web.archive.org/web/200708201843···cds.com/ | |
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Jafo232
You Can't Spell Democrat Without Rat.
Premium
join:2002-10-17
Boonville, NY | The Radio I for one will miss AOL radio if it ever actually dies. Nothing in this article says it will die. | |
| 
HKM
join:2008-12-31
Fort Lauderdale, FL
·AT&T Southeast
| Keyword cache for Search Engines. AOL... brings back so many good ol memories. At one point back in the days I was one of the most powerful folks to walk in the AOL under ground scene. Just by stating my name in channel would bring fear classified as first class terror.
Cache: Scroll, COS, TOS, ROR, KOL, AOL, Gag, Term, Eject, Rate, FDO, Token, SiD, SecureID, SERA, Merlin, OH, OverHead, HOST, LDRS, MESH, MGR, COSAction, TOSGeneral, Steve Case, TOSGen1, TOSGen2, TOSGen3, Indent, Error, DED, 1888, CRIS, Foundry, Fraud, S/O, SO, Security Override, Whitelisted, Blacklisted, Suspend, IP Ban, OpsSec, Red Note, Keyword, RAINMAN, Stream, Atom, Invoke, NetSplit, Winsock, BERP, TOC, IGT, OSCAR, TOC2, Pull, SWAT, Info, Bot, HyperNode, ChatBot 3x, Bot Resurrection, STHNS, Indy, dlb, VB, Sex, IXA, Majek, Chat, Pakistan, Guyana, GuyanaChat, Marznet, Anti-0nline, Lock, OSW, German, Bolt, Teamer, LOTSEN, Spam, Cracker, Spammer, Gagger, Ejector, Scroller, Tech Chat, Pr, Ar, Fr, SI. | |
| barryindy
join:2001-05-04
Indianapolis, IN | How Strange! It was AOL that acquired Time-Warner back in January, 2000. And now it's Time-Warner dumping AOL. | |
| 
drslash
Goya Asma
Premium
join:2002-02-18
Marion, IA | Worst corporate merger ever If there was ever a worse deal than the original TW AOL deal, then I'd like to hear about it. | |
| Mele20
Premium
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI
| What happens to RR backup dial up now? I really like having RR backup dialup for free for about 8 years now. What is going to happen to it now? It uses AOL phone numbers. When I use it, I dial the same local number I dialed for AOL before RR became available here which is a bit nostalgic. I recall AOL techs being so certain that AOL would embrace broadband and remain "king". They kept saying to me "We acquired TW not the other way around". They said repeatedly that "very soon" I would be able to have RR through AOL...I didn't believe that and it never happened. But I kept AOL for months after I got RR because of what they said (but I made sure I got it for free each month).
I was not a typical AOL user...never used the AOL browser and almost immediately after getting it became a beta tester for them which was lots of fun as I tested so many innovative things for them that everyone uses now yet them being first didn't help them in the long run. I still vividly recall the absolute certainty they had that they were truly king after acquiring TW. It was weird as they were totally blind to reality.
--
"The same ferocity that our founders devoted to protect the freedom and independence of the press is now appropriate for our defense of the freedom of the internet. The stakes are the same: the survival of our Republic". Al Gore, The Assault on Reason | |
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