#84 - The History of America Online (AOL).

Thank you for tuning in!  On today's episode we are taking a trip back to the 80s/90s to learn about the history of America Online (later AOL).  America Online was the brainchild of Steve Case, a man who knew that this internet "stuff" was going to get big and he wanted to build community via the internet.  You'll learn about what led up to America Online's development, the company's surge to the top of the technology field, and it's ultimate crash and burn.  AOL was the first exposure my sister and I had to the internet so it seems only fitting to do a show all about it!

Thank you to everyone who reminisced with me about your old AOL screen names! 

Please tell your family and friends about the show!  You can send them to my podcast website:   https://www.popcultureretrospective.com/

Transcript

Picture it, the year is 1998.  You just received a CD-Rom installation disk for free in the mail. You sit down at the family’s particle board desk and turn on your computer.   You pop it into the disk drive of your large desktop computer and install the software.  You make sure your phone line is available and you log on. 

Congratulations and welcome to the internet, compliments of America Online aka AOL.  For those of us who came of age in the 1990s, AOL was likely our first memory of using the internet.  So much of what we experience today is a direct result of the ideas and technology that were developed by this home internet juggernaut.  So sit back and relax while we take a trip back to the 1980s and 1990s to discuss the history of America Online.  

Thank you so very much for tuning in to the Pop Culture Retrospective Podcast. This show is dedicated to the memory of my big sister Rebecca, a fan of all things pop-culture, particularly of the people, places, and things that defined the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s.  Welcome aboard this pop culture time machine, I'm Amy Lewis. This is episode #84 - the History of America Online.  This show has been on my list for as long as I can remember so it seemed fitting to have this be the focus of one of my last episodes of the year.  The world wide web is the gift that keeps on giving this holiday season.  And as we go through this episode I will likely be using AOL and America Online interchangeably.  America Online became AOL officially in 2006, but nonetheless I will probably go back and forth, forgetting that timeline. 

Tom Berners Lee created the World Wide web in 1991 but that’s not exactly when our story begins.  Let’s go back to 1983.  That’s when I was born.  In 1983, a company named Control Video Corporation was founded by a man named Bill von Meister.  He created a product that could connect your Atari 2600 to your phone line.  You could rent games for $1.00.  This didn’t last all that long but it morphed into a company called Quantam Computer Services where  Steve Case, the eventual genius behind AOL, was an employee.  Case wanted to create an online group for people who had Commodore 64 computers.  So he helped create software for users of that system as well as Apple computers.  Eventually this niche program was no longer needed but Case didn’t give up.  He wanted to build a sense of community via the internet.  At night when he got home from work he would tinker around on the internet.  He wanted to bring the internet into people’s homes.  He could sense that this was going to explode at some point so he wanted to be that trailblazer.  So, in 1991, he renamed the company America Online to reflect his desire to build an online community.  He would eventually be named CEO.  Later, in 1993, AOL added email addresses. 

From 1985-1993, America Online jumped from 2,000 to 2,000,000 users.  Case was clearly on to something.

In 1996 AOL moved to a monthly pricing model over the hourly pricing model.  This led to a significant increase in usage and subsequent busy signals to the dismay of users.  For $19.95 per month you could access AOL whenever you heart desired.

Chat rooms were one of the biggest draws to their internet service.  Aol chat rooms were the pre-cursor to AIM or Aol instant messaging.  By the way - if you text message about 5000 times a day like I do, then you can thank AOL and their AIM program for that, but more on that later. One website described chat rooms as if Reddit and Craigslist had a child.  Chat rooms for the most part had some type of theme such as Punk Rock, Boy Bands, Dungeons and Dragons, etc.  You could see a list of who was in the room to the right and the conversation chain would be happening on the left.  I remember it feeling impossible to keep up with all of the conversations happening left and right, but at the time it was new and exciting.  In most rooms there was the infamous A/S/L question asked over and over again.  And in case you don’t remember ASL in this instance didn’t stand for American Sign Language it stood for Age, Sex, Location as in - if you are in this chatroom, how old are you, what gender to you identify as and where do you live?   I often lied about this because, at the time, I wanted to be living in Florida and I wanted to be older so I’m sure I often told people I lived in Orlando, Florida and that my name is Ali after my favorite actress and elderly crush, Ali MacGraw.  By 1997, there were 17,000 chatrooms.  1997 also marked the year that AIM or AOL instant messaging launched.  AIM allowed you to essentially text message, if you will, on your computer with anyone on your buddy list (people that you likely knew outside of the internet) or you could be messaged by random people.  Whenever a buddy on your buddy list signed onto AOL you would hear this noise.  And when they signed off, you would hear this noise.  AIM was really popular when I was in college circa 2001-2005.  Everyone at that age seemed to have AIM open all hours of the day and night and would put up away messages when they left their computer.  Do you remember that?  Did you do that?  I remember people leaving an unnecessary amount of information on their away message.  For example, I remember people having away messages that said something like - class, shower, nap, out to the movies.  Or maybe trying to imply something TMI like, class, getting naked - I am taking a shower you sicko, nap, out to the movies.  I feel like young people wanted to give the appearance like they were super busy and away from their computer when really they were probably sitting right by it.  AIM helped me stay connected with some of my family members and friends when I was away in college, it was really invaluable.  

1997 also marked the year that AOL acquired compuserve, which was similar to AOL in that it was an internet provider who also offered the ability for users to chat and access message boards.  AOL 4.0 launched in 1998 and it used pretty much all sources of CD production available so not a single CD with music or other software on it was created during the several week period that AOL discs were created. If you remember, AOL sent out millions and millions of AOL installation disks.  I swear we had dozens of those and we didn’t know what to do with them. With this edition of AOL, non-subscribers could access AIM.  

By 1999, there were 17 million subscribers.  Between subscribers and non-subscribers, there were over 100 million different screen names on AOL at it’s peak.  

I wish I could remember what some of my screen names were but I imagine they were something along the lines of SoccerGirl83 or WDWGirl71 (the year WDW opened). Now people could hang out in chat rooms for hours on end.

And speaking of AOL being at it’s peak, in 1998, the film “You’ve Got Mail” was released.  Starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, YGM was a romantic comedy written and directed by Nora Ephron.  Ephron’s sister, Delia also helped pen the script.  In the movie, Ryan and Hank’s characters meet in an AOL chat room and become sort of electronic pen pals for a while before they meet in person, deal with some conflict and ultimately end up together.  Ryan’s character is named Kathleen Kelly and Hank’s character is named Joe Fox.  It’s completely predictable and is a movie very much locked into a certain moment in time, but nonetheless it’s one of my comfort movies and my sister loved it as well.  The chat room the main characters meet in is in an over 30 room and their screen names are Shopgirl and NY152.  Apparently when the movie was in development someone already owned the sn Shopgirl, it was a woman who was a mechanic in real life.  Somehow they were able to convince her to give up the screen name and the rest is well, history.  Despite the characters use of AOL with ease, Hanks, Ryan and Ephron all needed some extensive training on the use of the internet in general and AOL.

And if 1998 wasn’t busy enough for AOL, they acquired netscape which, at the time, was one of the internets most popular search engines.  I remember utilizing netscape in high school.  

In 1999, AOL purchased MapQuest.  Mapquest, is actually still in operation today.  As someone who has always had a horrible sense of direction, having Mapquest was invaluable.  Do you remember getting verbal directions from people and writing them down?  I know I do.  

By the year 2000, AOL was the largest internet provider in the nation and it was worth over 125 billion dollars.   In  January of 2000, AOL merged with Time Warner and just as they were at their peak as a company, the merger sent the company into quite a tailspin.  AOL really started to overextend themselves at this time and the culture amongst the two companies was strikingly different. The dot com bubble burst in the early 2000s so this also didn’t help.  It seemed as though AOL and Time Warner were just not able to anticipate this crash and the changes taking place in internet technology.  There were also many reports that not only did the dot com bubble contribute to the merger’s demise, but also shady accounting practices.  Despite the challenges the company faced as a result of the merger, AOL did lay the groundwork for a lot of the most popular internet sites and smart phone apps we use on a constant basis. Like we talked about earlier, AIM paved the way for text messaging apps on smartphones like WhatsApp.  

There was also AOL music where well-known artists would perform their music in a studio and it would be broadcast via streaming video.  You could also listen to audio tracks.  

I remember downloading music from reliable programs like Lime Wire where not only was the quality questionable at times, but every once in a while you’d be listening to a song and every 30 seconds “AOL music, first listen” would be said over the track. Further, AOL local was sort of like YELP where patrons at restaurants and business establishments could leave reviews.  And in that vain, there was AOL travel which also produced videos and articles about traveling.  Finally, AOL video may have contributed to the creation of online video platforms like YouTube and Tik Tok.

Perhaps due to this failed merger, AOL named a new CEO in 2002, taking the reigns from Case.  

Also, in the early 2000s Broadband internet starting making an appearance in the technology and internet industry. It was a bit of a slow start though because modems cost upwards of $500 at this time.  However, about half of all internet users had broadband by 2007.  If you remember, AOL was all done using a phone line aka dial up which took FOREVER. I remember it could take several minutes for a website page to load.  I would often read magazines and books while I waited for this to happen.  I loved accessing the internet because I could look up information about Walt Disney World but it took forever to be able to do so! Also, if you wanted to download a single song, that could take 10-30 minutes and a low-quality movie could take 24 hours to 5 days to download depending on the speed. Not only that but since you had to use the phone line to access AOL you couldn’t use your phone if someone was using AOL. Once BB became the preferred way for the vast majority of internet users to access the internet, interest in AOL really started to drop by the wayside.  Customers could access AOL via broadband, but that required users to pay for both the broadband connection and an AOL account.  

In 2009, AOL and Time Warner split.  

In 2010, chat rooms ceased to exist on AOL  (TAPS HERE).  By this time, more people were interacting on social media via websites like MySpace (which I never had), Facebook, etc.  

In 2011, AOL acquired Huffington Post.  However, this apparently wasn’t the wisest business move as 900 employees were layed off following this acquisition.  

In 2015, AOL was acquired by Verizon for 4.4 billion dollars.

In 2017, AIM was discontinued.  The door closed for the last time.  No more internet text messaging.  

Since that acquisition in 2015, AOL has changed hands a few times and is now owned by a private equity firm Apollo Global Management and is now part of a new Yahoo! Organization.  It feels like such a crazy coincidence that two former well-known email providers have been brought together.  My sister had a Yahoo email account until she passed away and I used to always poke fun at her because when she left us in 2019 I didn’t know anyone else who had a yahoo email account.  I believe her email address was stuckin1995@yahoo.com  Just kidding it was something much more basic than that, like her name maybe.

I hope you have enjoyed this look back at America Online and it’s impact on the world of the internet, email, streaming video and music.  Probably one of the most memorable aspects of utilizing AOL were the sound effects, many of which you’ve heard throughout the show.  The sound bites of “Welcome” and “You’ve Got Mail” were recorded by a gentleman named Elwood Edwards.  According to an article from CNBC he got the job because quote:  “My wife worked for a company called Quantum Computer Services that became AOL,” Edwards told CNBC, “and in 1989 she volunteered my voice to [future CEO] Steve Case. And on a cassette deck in my living room, I recorded [the iconic phrases], it was digitized into the software as a test and has continued to this day.”  In 2016, a video of Edwards went viral when an Uber passenger discovered that their driver was the iconic voice behind AOL.  

I have kept meaning to share poll results with you all that I’ve done on a myriad of topics.

During one of author Jason R Lady’s appearances on the show, I asked him if he used college ruled or wide ruled paper when he was a student and thankfully he answered College ruled.  So I decided that would be a good poll question and the vast majority of listeners are team college ruled at 83% and wide ruled at 17%.  

On episode #81 of the show I did an episode all about our first cars with contributions from the fabulous PCR podcast community.  My first car had a cigarette lighter and so I decided I needed to ask everyone that question as well!  On Twitter, 78% of you said that your first car had one and 22% said it did not.

Based off of a post from Kevin James Thorton who is a hilarious comedian, I asked on IG, if you had to sell one of these two CDs which would you pick, Collective Soul or Spin Doctors?  Thankfully you all made the right choice with 60% voting to dropkick their Spin Doctors CDs vs 40% for Collective Soul.  

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that your holiday season is off to a great start!  A great gift you can give in appreciation of this show is to share it with your friends and family and leave a review.  Join me for my next show where we will be discussing another fascinating facet from the 80s, 90s and early 2000s.