What does AOL have that others (like YHOO and other aggregators) don't? Not much. Here's the main "channel" lineup: AOL Today, News, Sports, Entertainment, Travel, Influence (never been there), International, Personal Finance, Workplace, Computing, Research & Learn, Games (including a premium section where you pay/hour), Shopping, Interests, Health, Lifestyles, Families, Kids Only, Local, Internet, and People Connection.
Basically, it has some content that you can find for free in other places, some "partner" content that may be free for AOLers (i.e., First Call earnings estimates - with detailed info, not just basic info as on YHOO research), and some proprietary content. Chat is a killer use on AOL (XCIT chat is pretty similar, although there's not the depth there yet); along with instant messaging and buddy lists (which is moving towards open access to anyone on the web). One of the better things about AOL is you can have several windows open at one time without much problem. But it can be annoying at times too, like typing here I got a message "You have been idle for a while, do you want to stay online". Makes you stop typing and have to click the mouse.
Gee, David Gardner (of the Motley Fool) quoted one of my AOL MF posts in his writeup on AOL tonight. Labeled me a skeptic. <G> But hey, I'll at best probably shop for an ISP and change my AOL account to bring your own provider. At worst, I'll cancel altogether eventually.
KJ |
