Wikipedia: AOL

I know, I know. To say anything positive about AOL is like praising Barry Bonds as an upstanding fine example of an honest ballplayer. Or to cheer for Bill Belichick's sportsmanship. Or to give a thumbs-up to Britney Spears for responsible parenting.

But the fact is that I have a soft spot in my heart for the beleaguered corporation.

I signed up with AOL back in 1994. It was my first online experience after BBS's. For you young whipper-snappers, BBS's were file sharing and live chatting environments that you dial;ied into via your 2400 baud modems.

But when i connected to AOL for the first time, I discovered a huge community (I was around the two millionth customer) that teemed with clubs and groups for every interest. I also got my first email account. It was a real rush.

Well, the times changed. The WWW became a much friendlier, more accessible place than it had been back in those early days. And by the year 2000, AOL's power began to slip.

Nowadays, it's a shadow of its former self. Owned by Time-Warner, it has lost much of the small-town appeal it had when Steve Case ran the show. Its' hassles it dumps upon those who would try to disjoin themselves have become legendary, and have been well-documented on YouTube.

Yet, I still have a soft spot in my heart for AOL. After all, that's where I first crossed paths with a future internet entrepreneur by the name of Joel Comm fourteen years ago. And while writing has only been a pleasant sideline for me all of these years, I have accomplished some amazing things for myself with Joel's help over the years.

So enjoy today's FamilyFirst pick: a pretty objective writeup about AOL from Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL

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