Evaluation of Early Internet Resources

If you lived in the 90s and your family had a computer the mere sound of a dial tone is sure to conjure up memories of the famous AOL screen as it connected to the internet through a dial up connection or maybe the fondly remind you of the “You’ve Got Mail!” sound file that played loudly letting you know you’ve finally been connected to the internet. Some have fond and warm memories of one of the first big companies to provide the internet access into our homes that we all know today. Yet if you ask others you might get a completely different response all about slow speeds, poor design, and a company with tactless marketing tastes. America Online has played its role in bringing commercialized internet access to millions of homes, and millions of AOL discs to single homes everywhere.

In the early days of commercial internet it was somewhat of a barren wasteland. Navigation was hard as many of the popular graphical browsers that exist today were not around yet and the popularity of a connected internet had not sunk in yet. Things about the internet were still unknown to most users, and AOL played a huge part in helping to make it an easier place to navigate. Harry McCrackin (in his article for Technologizer entitled “A History of AOL, as Told in its Own Press Releases”) touches on a few examples of users not having a clear understanding of how the internet works; at one point in the article he mentions that users generally didn’t know that when you sent emails it wasn’t restricted to only the service provider that you paid for. The general public simply did not understand what the internet was exactly and how to use it, AOL stepped in and because our gateway. Much of the software that AOL packaged and sent out was set up in a way that was extremely easy to understand and figure out. Keywords used to be popular allowing users to not have to worry about URL’s and get access to the stuff we wanted by simply remembering a specific Keyword. Today a URL is something that is as common as a house address, but in the early days of the internet things weren’t that simple. Through the rise and fall of AOL it has always kept its focus on maintaining simplicity with in its design.

But it’s not all

It’s not all sunsets and sailboats however; there have been some rocky bumps in the road along the way. I had to do some searching but I found an article in The Washington Post titled “25 Years of AOL: A Timeline” that laid out the full history of events through the history of AOL. In 1985 Quantum Computer Services (later changed America Online and eventually AOL) had just launched its first online service but it wouldn’t gather steam until almost a decade later. In the early 90s it seemed that commercial internet was going to be a big deal and AOL had decided they needed to let more households know about their name and services. In 1993 they dipped their feet in the water by sending out some discs with X amount of time free through their service. The results were positive, so the company jumped head first in and began sending millions of discs to every household, magazine, or newspaper stand that would take them. Years later they would still be remembered for the bizarre choice to mass produce so many of these discs for distribution, however it had worked. Quickly climbing the ladder of success AOL became a household name and synonymous with the internet for a while. But eventually faster and cheaper service providers came along and there was a decline in the popularity of AOL.

Everyone likes a good comeback story and AOL has been working on reminding us all that they are still here and still running. Even though in 2006 AOL began offering most of its services for free through their website, they haven’t been sleeping. Michael S Rosenwald wrote an article in 2010 for the 25^th birthday of AOL (At 25, AOL Switches Tracks: Creating Content, Not Just Connecting Users) where he briefly outlines how AOL has dropped the focus on being a large scale internet provider and begun working on acquiring Niche websites and helping new ones start. The focus these days is on content such as blogs and social media. No matter what the future holds for AOL they will forever leave behind for us their legacy as one of the first consumer gateways to the internet.

McCracken, Harry, A History of AOL, as Told in its Own Press Releases (5/24/2010) http://technologizer.com/2010/05/24/aol-anniversary/

25 Years of AOL: A Timeline (5/23/2010) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/23/AR2010052303551.html

Rosenwald, Michael S, At 25, AOL switches tracks: Creating content, not just connecting users (05/24/2010) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2010/05/23/ST2010052303894.html