What actually became of the internet giant AOL?

Hardly any other company is so interwoven with the early Internet years as AOL. It was a worldwide internet provider, provider of the popular chat software ICQ and more. But where is AOL today?

The best way to compare why AOL fueled the internet boom at the beginning of the 1990s is with the Facebook phenomenon in the social media sector. Basically, AOL provided a raw version of Facebook back then, at least an idea of ​​it. Because for AOL one thing was always in the foreground: The users should never leave the AOL cosmos. When the World Wide Web was still in its infancy, the “free” Internet was considered complicated and dangerous. The company, on the other hand, presented a colourful, ideal online world and unbeatably easy access at the same time.

AOL stands for America Online and was born on May 24, 1985 in Dulles, Virginia. The new provider of online services initially lives from cooperation with companies from the time of the first home computer wave. In the early years, customers included Apple, Atari and Commodore.

In 1990 the World Wide Web was in the starting blocks. Various providers compete for access to the network, including the top dog CompuServe and AOL. Back then, CompuServe had more experience in the area of ​​online services. AOL, on the other hand, reaches young people much better with a new, brightly colored interface paired with an aggressive advertising strategy.

AOL brings people online

As the name suggests, AOL’s mission at the time was to bring America online. The company’s offer makes the new online world irresistible. As such, it doesn’t take long for it to convince the rest of the world to finally go online as well. With AOL it works really easy. The access software is completely free. The AOL CD is included as a free insert in many computer magazines and other magazines. A brilliant move.

Since the software seems almost inescapably present, at some point everyone puts the CD in the drive and takes their first steps in the online world. A small digression: In the 1990s, the way to the Internet was via data transmission. DFU stands for remote data transmission and works via the normal telephone network. A modem connected to the computer then takes care of the data connection and provides access to the World Wide Web.

The AOL software makes dialing in child’s play, even for computer novices. Username and password are sufficient. In return, customers receive a kind of colorful online magazine that they can browse through with a few simple clicks. Browsers or URLs do not exist in the AOL world. Of course, access costs money. At that time, the online minutes were billed via the telephone charges. Inconceivable today: AOL was Deutsche Telekom’s biggest competitor in the mid-1990s.

Also read: This is what popular websites used to look like

High Internet costs and prominent advertising partners

Some customers will soon feel the temptation of the new online world, namely through a monthly telephone bill. Amounts of 500 marks or more were not uncommon in some households at the time. Flat rates and the like did not initially exist. Going online by other means seemed completely unimaginable for most customers. AOL uses this dependency of its own customers to continue to grow.

At the height of the early Internet boom, German tennis legend Boris Becker advertises for AOL. Launched in the early 2000s, the advertising campaign begins at a time when AOL has risen to become the world’s largest internet service provider with 30 million customers. At that time, almost everyone in Germany knew sentences like “You have mail” or “I’m in.” At the same time, the Internet giant is heading unerringly towards the abyss and within a few years is sinking into the maelstrom of insignificance.

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This is where the internet giant failed

In retrospect, those familiar with the online scene describe the merger with the US media company Time Warner in 2000 as the main reason for the decline of AOL. The newly founded company AOL Time Warner stuck to the basic idea of ​​selling the Internet as a colorful online magazine for too long. In addition, another company has now opened up completely new ways of being online. This company is called Google.

Also read: Google – a story about a garage and a 1 with many zeros

Other experts, on the other hand, state that AOL has completely overslept the technical development towards broadband access. It wouldn’t be the first time that technological advances have replaced former global players by other up-and-coming companies or that they have disappeared from the scene completely.

However, AOL has not completely dissolved. However, only a few traces of the former Internet giant can be found in the endless expanses of the online world. After the failed cooperation with Time Warner, the name AOL slowly disappeared. In Germany, the company will close all branches in 2010.

In 2015, the US mobile operator Verizon took over the remaining parts. However, this wedding does not bring any new happiness either. In 2021, the remains of AOL will end up with the US investment company Apollo. Nevertheless, AOL still exists today, for example via the online newspaper Huffington Post or the online news portal TechCrunch.

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