The Official "Goodbye" To AOL

Remember back when everyone you knew, including yourself, was on AOL? Remember the "Goodbye" voice that chimed when you signed off of AOL? Well for those still holding onto their AOL account, those who refuse to make a change for the better and have yet to move to the modern days of broadband, you may of heard that old familiar "Goodbye" voice for the last time. It looks as if America Online is finally tumbling down. AOL became a cyber-powerhouse in the era when most people connected to the Internet with a modem and a telephone line. Ultimately, the company signed up more than 25 million subscribers who paid up to $23.50 a month for unlimited dial-up access to the Internet and AOL's proprietary content and services. Although more recently, as millions have migrated to broadband connections offered by cable and DSL providers, AOL has struggled to craft a new business strategy. Therefore AOL has decided to do away with their subscription service.

Yes, that is a chair constructed entirely out of AOL CDs.

Even though AOL has been de-throned as the once ISP king...

the chair will live on.

AOL held onto the idea that they would have so many good things to offer (such as shopping, chat, news, music, videos, etc.) that subscribers would spend their time within the online service instead of venturing out on the Internet. Another effort by AOL involved trying to hang onto broadband subscribers with discounts on bring-your-own-Internet-access packages and new features that took advantage of broadband links. These strategies helped for a time, but defections by AOL subscribers to broadband alternatives have accelerated at an alarming rate. What's more, it's not just broadband that AOL has to compete with. The growing services offered by Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft Network, not to mention the rest of the Internet. This must have many AOL customers asking themselves...what are we paying for that they can't get elsewhere for free?

Now comes word that America Online is planning a radical shift in strategy that may hold benefits for all Internet users. According to news reports, AOL will begin moving much of its content outside the "AOL Keyword area" and onto the Internet where anyone, AOL subscriber or not, can access it. The idea is that by reaching the larger segment of the Internet, America Online will be able to generate more money from advertising than it loses in subscriptions. AOL is calling this its "audience strategy." It's a big gamble because subscriptions that regularly bring in up to $23.50 a month are a hard asset to give up and an even harder one to replace, but AOL must do something or risk losing subscribers steadily for years to come.

For non-subscribers, the benefits will be enormous. AOL's vast holdings of news, sports, music and more will add variety and quality to the programming available free online. It's possible that AOL could have avoided this. If AOL had aggressively moved to provide broadband access, perhaps through its own Time Warner cable and partnerships with other providers, it might have brought its online service intact into the broadband age. It's too late to worry about that now because AOL is crumbling. If you have any of those AOL floppy discs and CDs that the company used to spread around, you might consider hanging onto them as a souvenir of a bygone era. Better yet, just use them as coasters like everyone else does.