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Remembering AOL
I remember when AOL was the king of the hill in the early 90s. Compuserve and Prodigy were the other two choices for consumer online access, but they never had a chance. The "hook" of the online experience back then was email, and Compuserve and Prodigy each had its own incredibly, laughably complicated interface. AOL had a simple, easy-to-use interface. Sending and receiving email was a breeze on AOL and difficult anywhere else. No mystery why AOL won.
But then the Web arrived, and email was no longer the hook. Yes, email was still important, but the Web was a boundless resource, even back then - and continued to get more interesting and full-featured.
AOL could have said "we're committed to the user experience, and the Web is important to users, therefore let's embrace the Web."
Instead, AOL said "we're committed to remaining the sole provider of the Internet to our captive customers." So they made it hard for users to get to the Web, and unpleasant once they got there, via a horribly designed Web browser. (Didn't they see what happened to Prodigy and Compuserve, with their horrible email programs?)
And then, as a tepid response to the universe of wonder that was the Web, AOL offered a smidgen of content that they vetted, something they called the "walled garden." This was what AOL approved, and delivered, as your sole provider of the Internet. We see now how that top-down approach went.
To summarize: AOL, once a leader, lost its customer focus and suffered - probably fatally - as a result. (Exercise for the reader: can you think of any other companies that fit that pattern?)
Now we're at the point where the New York Times runs a post called Who uses AOL, and why? and gets over 400 responses, most of them negative, like this:
A-O-Hell is a service I use out of neccessity and not choice. It is awful from the ground up. The e-mail does not separate spam like Google's Gmail, their Search Engine is deplorably bad, the chatrooms are over-run ... the discerning customer knows better than to clog their computer with their flawed software.
It's a lesson for any company, in this economy, wondering where to focus its budgets.
I was once a vendor to AOL and while I legally can't speak to many things, I can say these few things. AOL has its share of problems, like any company. The key differentiators I believe are not in the execution, but those driving the train. I worked with some really bright people on the execution front from UX folks to Dev folks and AOL is (or at least didn't use to be) short on solid talent for the execution piece. The problem was on the directional front. Many bad decisions were made by those who should know better and could have made AOL shine with the best of the web, but they did not. Whether it was lack of experience or just plain power struggles (or both), that I am not allowed to say. In closing AOL has a fleeting chance to save itself, but some major house cleaning and 180 degree direction needs to be defined. AOL, like GM, did not want to adopt to what the industry wanted or really needed. In turn, they failed. The American consumer is a powerful force and one that can only be driven so much.
Yes, AOL has a reputation for being a cruddy company in terms of service offerings, but there may be a glimmer of hope. They've leaked a screenshot of their newest home page service, which is one of the first of its kind to integrate non-AOL services offered by direct competitors such as Gmail and Yahoo. Will be interesting to see what happens.
AOL...lol. I think I remember them...I probably have got a free disc in my cupboard upstairs for those wonderful days! My worry is that with the credit Crunch people revert to type and focus back on efficiency and cost cutting and loss their Customer focus.
I didn't realise they were still in business.
I would like to see a similar story written around the major US auto manufacturers. I believe their failings will be due to poor direction/decisions coupled with executive-level greed and (mostly) ego. It may not be long before the manufactures head the way AOL did or the Dodo bird.
On a personal note whenever I note that someone still has an AOL email address I can't help but assume they stayed due to inertia, not choice. I hope that does not make me a snob but as soon as I experienced the inconvenience of being an AOL customer in the old days I fled to Juno, Net Zero, any place else where the spam didn't reach me. AOL did not deal with this problem at all for financial and monopolistic reasons
There was more to AOL's initial appeal than e-mail. AOL provided organized content with rich presentation at time when the web and web portals were much more primitive. More important were the chat rooms. The ease at which these three features could be used made them the leaders they were. Things changed and the enclosed and managed environment became a weakness and they lost their position in the market.
I actually chose Compuserve over AOL to avoid the horrible user interface.
And how many of those blasted "free AOL" disks are in landfills now??? Ugh.