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AOL Pretends to be the Internet - The History of the Web (thehistoryoftheweb.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.capebreton.social/post/497698

In 1994, Ted Leonsis was the head of the new media marketing firm he created, Redgate Communications, spun out six years earlier from a CD-ROM based computer shopping business. Redgate dealed in digital media—sometimes called new media—new territory in the marketing world. And he was pretty good at it. That year, he went out to lunch with one his investment bankers, Dan Case. Case mentioned that his brother Steve was working at a small internet company looking to bring internet services to the mainstream. They had only just finished rebranding to a new name, with a new purpose, America Online.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (3 children)

God, I remember the commercials where some dumb kid would push this narrative: "AOL is the Internet!" They would just directly say the lie outright. And after polluting the world in AOL CD-ROMs, it worked for a time.

Such a scummy corporation. I'm glad Time-Warner got burned when they bought them for a high price, right at the peak where they were going to drop like a cliff in popularity.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I remember a very specific commercial where they were listing stuff that was "on" AOL, most or all of which was just on the broader actual Internet , and then closed with some pitch like, "AOL has things you can't get anywhere else," clearly implying everything they just listed was exclusive to AOL. I couldn't understand why every other ISP wasn't suing them into oblivion for that crap.

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