Hi folks -- well, it's been all over the news; you should have gotten an e-mail from AOL CEO Jon Miller; and AOL Audience group president Ted Leonsis just blogged about it, so I thought I would say a few words about the New AOL strategy.
Since my track record shows that I've been wrong at least as often as I've been right on these sorts of business/strategy things, I will restrict myself to talking about how it affects you, the Journals user.
Short answer: It shouldn't affect your Journals at all.
In a nutshell -- if you have already have Internet connectivity (either broadband, like cable, DSL or satellite, or dialup via another provider), you can switch to the free AOL plan, which pretty much gets you everything except 24/7 phone customer support. [Update, 8/4: Clarification -- with the free plan, you won't get 24/7 live customer support -- that means phone, e-mail, and chat help. You can still access the help documents at help.aol.com, but if you want access to live help, you will probably want one of the paid plans.]
This means that you can keep using the AOL client software; you'll keep your existing Screen Names, and you'll keep your stored data like Favorite Places, AOL Pictures, Mail, and of course, AOL Journals.
If you want to switch to the free plan, you just have to call Member Services and request this.
I'm not really qualified to talk about the specifics of the plan, the broader implications of the New AOL strategy (see Ted's thoughts on the strategy), or pretty much anything else, so if you have questions, check out the New AOL Strategy Frequently Asked Questions Page, and call Member Services if you're interested in switching to the free plan.
I am fairly certain that you won't be subject to an endless Member Retention pitch when you try to switch to the free plan.
Thanks -- Joe
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What about storage space? Seems like I read that emails won't have as much. What about our journals then? Our FTP space? Will the limit go down? Can I lose what I already have there? Will all of journals stay? I mean I have almost 3 years worth of entries, will that be part of my "space"? Could AOL decide to only keep so many months worth up? Do I need to back up to my hard drive?
Kathy
Those are some good questions Kathy. I'd like to know too.
Kathy -- everything with your account would be exactly the same as it is now. Except you wouldn't pay, of course.
Please see the New AOL FAQ, http://daol.aol.com/newaol/announcement_faq , especially items #1, 2, 3 and 6 (number 6: Q: "Where's the Catch?" A: There isn't one.)
Thanks -- Joe (posted & mailed)
I haven't received on of those letters yet but my hubby called AOL yesterday and now we have free AOL. Helen
Just saw on the CBS news that the AOL work force is being cut by 25%. Hope you are able to dodge the bullet. Does this mean (finally) that non-AOL subscribers can comment on our jnls? If so, will we have something similar to Blogger for that purpose?
This may seem like a really lame question, but I just called the 800 number, and got the automated system, went through the questions then came to the question about what I wanted to do to my account, the choices seem pretty clear, but I am not certain, the obivous choice seems to be cancel my account, but if I cancel my account, does that shut me out of my email, the other choice that I thought of was change my account information, but that doesn't seem quite right. I don't want to make this hard process, so like I said this is a lame question, but I want to make the right choice, anyone else done this yet?
Thanks
Connie
If you need technical assistance wiith AOL software, will it be available for a fee?
You may or may not know this, but will the live chats with tech support be available for free?
-Andrew
I may be able to answer some of these questions people have been asking here as I already changed my plan today. I connect to the internet with service from my TV cable company. I had been paying $14.95 a month for AOL. I called them today and was given two options...get AOL for free, and have no customer service or support and no dial-up hours free so to speak if my modem or cable company had trouble...this is something I didn't know I had anyways. I opted for the 2nd choice which was pay $4.95 a month and with this I get AOL as I always have plus customer service and 10 hours of dial up time. The change has already been made and my e-mail, journal and access to boards and chats are all still intact.
Here's a tip to avoid all that automated voice crap when you call AOL...SAY NOTHING, let the automated voice talk it's little heart out. The machine will keep saying it can't hear you, but say nothing! You'll then get on to wait for a real person to talk to, and listen to some bad music, but hang in. It took me about 1/2 an hour to get a real person and they explained everything and the changes were effective immediately.
The botton line here is AOL has been losing customers for years basically because the service is so pricey. As we all know ads are everywhere on AOL now and we hate them but thats what AOL chose to do in order to lower their subscription price to keep us from leaving.
About next January, remind me to ask you how this will hurt/help people who had their accounts comped by someone at AOL who isn't there anymore.
They said no phone support, does that also include no online support?
No Phone Support??? You have to be kidding. Laughing out loud here.
Krissy
http://journals.aol.com/fisherkristina/SometimesIThink
No Phone support then? Pah!... Well I dunno what yours is like in the USA .. but here in the UK... Our phone support is famous for being as good as *NO PHONE SUPPORT* anyway... So.. really it wont make ANY difference to us.. haha.. Well except of course the humongous price reduction.. £30 ( $60 ish)... per month for UP to 2mb Broadband... Please note.. *UP* too... because *usually*.. its scraping 1mb.. anyhooo.. Ive just woken up.. and now.. is maybe not the best time for me to be rattling on about AOL pricing.. haha..
Ciao
Claire :o)
http://journals.aol.com/bendyhendy/BendysWorld/
h
Joe,
Unrelated to this item: I had two alert-emails this morning, which were not accessible. One was for a new entry, the other for a comment on my own journal. Added to that, I am now stuck with a warning for 2 new emails that are not actually in the Inbox.
http://journals.aol.co.uk/pharmolo/NorthernTrip
h
aol support has never solved an issue I've had so i'm thinking this might not be such a great loss and the free aol might be the way to go...
aol support has never solved an issue I've had so i'm thinking this might not be such a great loss and the free aol might be the way to go...
Joe,
Since people who switch to "free AOL" apparently won't lose anything -- since I don't call the loss of "live tech support" a loss -- I'm wondering two things:
1. What about chats? When I stopped paying for AOL, I found that I could no longer enter the chatrooms like "Journals Cafe" with AIM. The very limited chatrooms that seem integrated into the AIM software take you to rooms that end up being nothing but constant links for one porn site or another.
2. If you are using "free AOL," will you use the actual AOL software at all? I mean, can you still start the AOL program and just access everything as you used to, or must you go to www.aol.com for everything?
Thanks...
Patrick
Hi folks -- I just posted a new entry that should answer some of the questions I see in here: http://journals.aol.com/journalseditor/magicsmoke/entries/2006/08/04/followup-on-some-of-your-new-aol-strategyfree-plan-questions/1585
Thanks -- Joe
hello,
my name is Andre and i switched to the new free aol.it works fine for me ,but how do i remove the constant bombardment at every time i sign on they ask me do i want stay with the free account. i called aol and they refuse to remove it. does anyone know what to do?
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