AOL Plans to Offer Free Webmail

UltimaGuy writes "AOL plans to offer a free webmail service to compete directly with Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail. Does this mean AOL is trying to become something which it is not?"

What they're not? Nah...

Does this mean AOL is trying to become something which it is not?

Conversely I think AOL is trying to enforce what it is: a portal to their own services and the internet. Once a user is using AOL's mail package then AOL can put whatever it wants on their mail webpage much like MS does with Hotmail. "Want to chat with Britney and Justin? Join AOL for $FOO and be here Saturday night!"

AOL is a business, businesses don't do "free" without some catch. Their free mail offering is nothing more than a hook to get the AOL brandname back into peoples' minds.

Business is business

I hope you're not trying to put a negative spin on that. Frankly, I think it's great that AOL's involved. Look what happened when Google entered the market: competition drove the quality of all the other products way up. Capitilism at its best.

I really don't think AOL will catch on to be nearly as big as the other three mentioned, but I don't begrudge them doing what's in their best economic interest.

Re:What they're not? Nah...

AOL is a business, businesses don't do "free" without some catch. Their free mail offering is nothing more than a hook to get the AOL brandname back into peoples' minds

Ahhh but as a 'free' webmail provider myself, I can tell you the conversion rate from free to "paid something" is quite small. They're going to have to pull in a LOT of free users, or provide something out of the ordinary to get people to pay up.

I wouldn't suggest trying to leverage 'free' into 'paid' as a business model.

It's not what it was

"Does this mean AOL is trying to become something which it is not?"

It's not what it was. When they are hemorrhaging so many users a month, they are no longer succeeding at being an ISP. Looks like they are branching out to see if something else works. Like Apple trying out the iPod "experiment".:Their Newton experiment didn't work too well, but this one by golly seems to be paying off.

However, I don't see this helping AOL that much. I don't think that the webmail field is all that lucrative, and it is very crowded with competitors (even including Hotmail) getting better.

Oooh! Free webmail!

Wow, wouldn't you love to have a free webmail address with the AOL brandname attached to it, so you can email your friends with? Nothing says class, prestige and superior social status like a free webmail AOL address! Where do I sign up?

Not necessarily a bad thing..

Does this mean AOL is trying to become something which it is not?

I think it would be good for most people to become something which they are not.

Uh...

Uh, so I can get a webmail account on a domain where there are already 20million+ usernames taken?

Great! I get to be [e-mail].

Re:Uh...

You insensitive clod!

Features

The beta doesn't even go public to non-aol subscribers until later in 2005. Currently it is limited to the 100MB given to AOL users, and they haven't given any indication that will change.

Considering Hotmail and Yahoo mail have upgraded to 250MB, about the only thing going for it is the AIM integration.

The Free Internet Is Over?

I remember when Apple started charging for its .Mac stuff. Steve Jobs said that the free internet was over. Well, it seems to have rebounded. Gmail now offers 1GB of storage and everyone else seems to be going that way too. The problem is that AOL is becoming less useful. They were offering their subscribers a tiny email box and dial-up access for $24 per month. At the same time, they could get nearly identical service - often better - from others for less than half that price. Heck, you can get it from AOL for less than half the price under their Netscape brand. This has led AOL to loose, I think, 4 million subscribers recently.

AOL never came up with a good broadband strategy and they never came up with content or tools that the internet didn't match or better. Put that together and AOL just doesn't look like a good value. With this strategy, AOL is trying to correct that mistake and leverage the AOL brand to offer things on the same playing field as its competitors.

AOL has webmail for members

This isn't such a strech. They already have AOL available from the web (with a decent client). And Pop3/Imap for aol mail.

This will be like IM which is free for non AOL members, this will make paying for there service much less Desirable. I guess the AOL Everywhere initiative isn't panning out.

We used to use aol at work for a second "on site email" address. It had these things going for it: local numbers everywhere, a 1-800 number to dial in when all else fails. It was the travelers friend. Now with web mail and most hotels having some limited wifi, its much less usefull.

Good for consumers though

AOL Mail Invites

Ok who wants AOL Mail Invites?...I have 6 to give out...

What a dumb lead-in.

"Does this mean AOL is trying to become something which it is not?"

1. AOL is a Internet technology compnay. Email is part of it. AOL is a customer service company. Email serves customers.
2. Who cares if AOL does something different. Does it really matter? Or is this where we all bash one company (MS, AOL, Walmart, **AA) for doing something, yet praise another company (Apple, RedHat) for doing the exact same thing.
3. You don't need to have the stupid lead-in questions that can be answered with a Yes or No. People will still not read the article and post comments. Even in duplicate stories.

Easy on the cynicism. It's almost Christmas!

Does this mean AOL is trying to become something which it is not?"

This reminds of of when that crazy search engine Google said they were gonna do webmail. Nice try Google! We all know you're just a search engine!

Hmmm....

As an employee of The Death Star... errrr... Time Warner, I think it's safe to say that the only way this thing will work, is if they outsource their IT jobs. If the clowns running it now are the ones they rely on to keep it up and running right, it will die a quick embarrasing death. I mean, these are guys who remotely access everyone's computers at night and remove printer drivers for the printers they shipped us... Or disable all of the audio hardware on laptops used for presentations... Then they get all peeved when their phones start ringing. I realize that's a small issue, as long as it's not your printer, but it's indicative of the sharpness of the tools in our shed.

I have to go now... there are some men here to escort me to the re-education chamber for speaking out about our hard working, highly skilled IT workers.

Are there really any web apps as good as client?

I've yet to see a web application as good as a comparable client application.

They have found a method to make it profitable

Most companies look at things from the perspective of "Will it make us money?" I'm sure AOL is not different. I'd say that someone came up with an idea, researched it and presented it to the managment team and was able to convince them that somehow, someway there was enough potential there for them to make money so they decided to do it.

Frankly, I kind of like the idea of an AOL email account. I can give people an address I'll never check!

something it's not?

Does this mean AOL is trying to become something which it is not?

No more than Google is. Remember when it was a search engine? AOL has been doing email for years.