The message board everyone seems to be ending up in is Yahoo’s ACC Message board.

What does ACC stand for?

ACC is the Atlantic Coast Conference, it pertains to a list of 12 colleges who play in the NCAA College Bastketball.  The university of North Carolina will be participating in the NCAA Final Four on April 4th, 2009. People Connection has a heading called “Top Headlines” and the NCAA Final Four is very much so a top headline. Now this should explain why AOL is linking to this particular message board.

Well why is AOL directing users to Yahoo Message Boards?

Facebook, Myspace, on AOL.com?

Well first I need to explain AOL’s home page. You may have noticed in the previous year, AOL.com has begun linking to Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Ebay, and Facebook. AOL is trying to show the world how ‘cultured” they are by linking to such sites. It’s really just another way to show how they are no longer a “walled garden”.

Does this mean AOL is letting Yahoo take over the message boards?

No, let’s take a look at the People Connection page. Under the Top Headlines, it links to several other message boards. All of these message boards are not owned or operated by AOL, BUT, AOL is linking to them. Whenever someone posts a new topic on these specific message boards, AOL displays the newest topic as soon as it’s posted. Here’s where things get technical.

RSS Feeds

Do you know what RSS feeds are? Well to simplify it as much as I can, RSS feeds show the latest news, blogs, or message board posts as soon as they are publicly available. The “Top Headlines” on the People Connection page is just a simple list of RSS feeds displaying the latest post on message boards. Each time a person posts, AOL shows that topic. AOL members have pretty much hijacked a message board with topics unrelated to basketball.

So in conclusion, AOL isn’t really telling users to join Yahoo, they are just displaying posts from different message boards using RSS feeds. Since AOL users hijacked the Yahoo ACC message board, it appears as if AOL wants members to use Yahoo as their main message board. This of course is not the case.

Time Warner plans to split AOL into two factions, an advertisement unit and a dial-up unit. The plan will be to sell off each unit to potential buyers.

Dial-up users do not make up the majority on AOL so giving them away won’t be such a big deal. Plus this means that AOL will finally have no use for India call centers, although they still might work as online tech support.

The advertising unit also known as Platform A, accounts for the whole AOL community, but mainly focuses on Ad.com. Platform A consists of tons of websites and brands all across the internet. Its a very lucrative spot to potential buyers as they will have ad spots in tons of areas including the massive AIM user base.

I am a Dial-up User, Where do I go?

Earthlink has been in talks to take over dial-up subscribers. I believe dial-up users will be switched over to an entirely new Earthlink email address, Their AOL account will automatically be switched over to free and they will be encouraged to use both emails. This is just purely speculation.

I am a Broadband User, Where do I go?

As for the advertisement unit, it looks like we’ll end up joining Microsoft or Yahoo, or hopefully someone else who wants to step up to the plate.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms

The most interesting part of this merger is the drama between each of the major companies. Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft are battling it out to gain the largest footprint over internet advertisement revenue. If AOL merges with Yahoo, Microsoft gets upset. If AOL merges with Microsoft, Google gets upset. Added to this problem includes the recent deal Yahoo and Google are making to share advertisement plans. Microsoft isn’t so happy about that either and wants the decision blocked. I’m hoping neither of these companies buy AOL. As you can see its already a tangled mess. Joining forces with AOL will only complicate matters.

If Microsoft or Yahoo does indeed buy AOL, interoperability will finally be on the table. Whoever buys AOL will now have to integrate all AOL screennames together with the buyer’s IM service. For the first time we may finally have AIM with the ability to add Microsoft and Yahoo subscribers to the buddy list. I know many have have been clamoring for that.

The other great feature is advertisement revenue. Now Yahoo or Microsoft will have an even larger audience to host advertisements, including non-AOL owned websites that Ad.com serves.

The Buzz Around the Internets

There seems to be no agreement as to who should buy AOL. One thought is that If Microsoft buys AOL, it could allow Yahoo to prove themselves to investors that they can run independent of Microsoft. Another speculates that AOL won’t be able to save the Microsoft brand. We may find ourselves watching the same thing happen years from now when Microsoft announces it will try to sell off AOL.

During this battle, users are always the victims. If I were to choose a company that could attempt to save the AOL community to bring them back together, I would choose Yahoo. Yahoo has proven its expertise in this aspect with sites such as Yahoo Groups and Yahoo Answers.

What do you think will happen to AOL?

Post a comment on your ideas and thoughts as to what might happen to AOL. You’ll have to wait until 2009 its announced what plans AOL will be forced to make.

Old Yahoo Mobile News Portal 

–Go to URL:

http://wap.oa.yahoo.com/raw?dp=rssnews

Now your done and you can enjoy the whole news from your cell phone!

Yahoo Web Messenger unveiled itself to the public recently as an alternative to those who would rather not download their clunky yahoo messenger program. Unlike Aim Express, Yahoo Web Messenger loads within the browser window, and its features are all done in flash. Lets take a look between Yahoo Web Messenger and Aim Express.

Logging On.

With Yahoo’s Web Messenger, you first login through a popup window. After validation the site will load through the main browser window automatically. As for Aim Express, you login through the main window but then things start to get screwy. One thing is where it redirects you to a page stating your popup blocker is blocking the window from popping up. Sometimes that message stays on even if you allowed the two domains to popup. Once you get passed this area, Aim opens up in a window on the side.

Sending Messages

Since Yahoo has everything done in flash. All messages are sent within the window and show up in a frame to the right of the buddy list. You can resize the width of the frame near the top of the window. AIM however has to open a popup window, after this takes a while to load you can send a message. For some reason the sent messages are delayed. You can click on the send button and it can take a few second for it to actually be sent. Sometimes this causes a bug where you send the same message numerous times.

Recieving Messages

Yahoo places all messages within its window. All messages are tabbed by the user. You can switch names quickly on the fly and can read history about your previous conversation. Aim Express on the other hand creates a new window for anyone who IMs you. This new window takes up focus, it gets very annoying typing in one window when a message pops up and you begin typing in that window.

Quirks

Yahoo Messenger only has quirks with the avatars. These avatars do not load up on the first use. After 2 uses, my avatar finally showed up, as for my friend’s I had to log off and back on to see it. They do show up in the History section but I’m not sure why they aren’t as dynamic as Aim is. In Aim Express, the smiley faces work on the first IM sent, after that they malfunction and don’t show up at all.

Conclusions

Yahoo seemed to have taken the safe route of Meebo.com and placed all of its messages inside one window. Surely this window may not give you that much attention but its better than having pop ups. These pop ups just float over the screen in the middle of your work. Not only are they annoying, but each and everyone takes a while to load. Woe to you if you get Mass IMs from different people. It may be time for AOL to switch Aim Express to flash, there is just way too much problems with Aim Express that hasn’t been fixed. I feel in this case its OK to copy Yahoo’s design this time. Yahoo may not have all the extra features Aim Express has but hey atleast it works properly.

Yahoo premiered its new Windows Vista line. Its basically Yahoo’s answer to Aim Triton. It features some interesting touches and features that puts it as a strong opponent against the Aim Empire. The Friends list is displayed neatly ontop of each other with a icon preview of each of their names. A green or red bar next to their picture displays their online status. The most interesting feature is the Widgets and Skins areas. You can move a friend over to the Yahoo Widgets sidebar to see their status all the time. You can also change the skins of the program instantly with a click on the color wheel. You can change it to Opaque with different colors, or you can choose a texture such as grass and woodgrain. They also added tabbing, which right now is kind of clunky. For every new IM window you must drag that window over another window’s tab area. These two windows will merge to form a tabbed conversation. Hopefully they allow a setting that makes all windows become tabbed regardless. Yahoo messenger supports transparent windows with the Windows Vista Aero theme, however it looks rather silly when multiple IM windows show up. There’s more to come but you can take a video tour at the new preview page.

AOL, Google, and Windows Live, have been the biggest players in providing websites for your cell. In the world of WAP, there is limited amount of space and bandwith. Its essential to create sites that are easy to use with quick load times.  We’ll divulge into each one of these as well as others suggested by you.

AOL Mobile: Had a strong hold on WAP in the beginning, but it has gotten weaker since its competitors have been pretty much doing the same thing. AOL Mobile has provided an easy to use set of links to its various services. The news area is its worst, providing the least amount of news compared to the other networks. It features only major stories in whichever catergory you choose. The news articles are short and don’t provide much reading entertainment. Its Mail feature is pretty much the highlight of the whole thing. Your able to read mail very easily and switch to another place. The new AOL Feed Reader, is a wonderfull suggestion, unfotunately it doesn’t work as well. Its major problem is that it doesn’t remember what feeds you add, and this could seriously be fixed if they made you login to view your feeds. Your better off using this for a quick read for those hard to reach sites. AOL search which was the pioneer before google to format pages with images to your phone, is a little on the heavy side. I quickly run out of memory and recieve Page can not be displayed messages. Mapquest provides the best directions as always, but their maps are a little too detailed for mobile phones. The rest of the WAP portal isn’t really worth your time. Score: 75%

Google Mobile: After AOL held the market long enough, Google’s main focus was to launch its own search page that formatted webpages with images to your phone. Google offers a better way of doing it since it breaks up a webpage into small chunks. Sometimes the chunks are so small that you’ll end up with 17 pages with pure nonsesense on it before you finally reach something good. Google puts up a good fight in its other services such as Google Maps. Its first a little tricky since a radio button must be selected and you have to type in something for it to search. You’ll usually get annoyed by it thinking you should type in a city and state. What it actually does is put your search box in the "WHAT" catergory, and then you type the location in the WHERE catergory. Driving directions are good and the maps are somewhat blurry but still they load quite fast. Gmail is another feature that isn’t much things going on in it. The biggest thing to do is be able to view pictures in email. You can also download a picture formatted to your phone. Google’s biggest drawback is its Google News area. Its loaded with HUGE TEXT for the catergories, making it annoying to search through. The news seems to be preselected with certain sites and because of this some news items are outdated. Trying to find news through the catergories is pretty dull. You’ll get a few news stories and then it mysteriously ends as if there isn’t any more news on that subject.  Score: 70%

Yahoo Mobile: The news section takes over as its biggest and well designed area. First all news catergories lead to sub-catergories. You’ll easily find the news you want to read and also since there is one pic per news story, pages load very fast. The news listings are compareable to digg. You’ll find lots of interesting stories by date. The back and next buttons are convieniently numbered so you can easily reach to the pages you want. Unfortunately there is no way of going back from a sub-catergory, meaning you’ll have to retype the site if you’d like to choose another subcatergory. The site saves your location for movies and weather. An easy saved list of your most recent locations are stored on the site. There is also a Y2Go! service which doesn’t support my phone. Score: 80%

Windows Live Mobile: Another portal site with basically the same features as the others. The biggest let down is the news section where huge new headlines dominate the screen. You must first scroll accross these huge headlines before you reach down to the catergories.  Every news article has a picture similar to Yahoo’s however they chose  a bigger maximized picture which takes some time to load. Another annoying thing is at the top, where a grey MSN logo appears. Due to this, my phone freezes a bit as it passes by. The weather section is nice but it closes the browser as it redirects itself to someplace else. Other features such as lottery makes it  much easier to view scores instead of going to the state’s horribly confusing lottery website. In my network they even included a chatroom/message board area. Even though its a totally seperate company, Windows Live mobile has more advanced communication tools than the rest.  Score: 60%

I often view Yahoo and AOL as opposites. Yahoo works one way (ask to add to buddylist/chatrooms for free/strong groups with limited features/no strong sense of the "Yahoo" community).. Aol works this way (add anyone you want/chatrooms for paying or verified/non existant groups/strong community since everyone is new). Now if you put those together you’ll get a whole mess of confused AOL users who have no Idea how to use Yahoo, or Happy Yahoo users who can talk to people on AIM. Personally I think from this deal, AOL would lose out, and it would probably have to intergrate itself into Yahoo. 

The deal would put AOL in good financial state, but from the community aspect, its going to be too big. Yahoo is freedom based, while AOL has Nazi TOS, and when these two communities combine all the newb language you’ve grown to hate will start flying everywhere. People will get upset at AOL as it does nothing against Yahoo Users. AOL community leaders begin to dissapate into this one unified "Yahoo." This  omnipresent entity that acts without thought and judgement and suspends a group / a community / a person without reason.  Can AOL user handle the pornographic free spirited hippies of Yahoo?

No… Yahoo is a great company but their ideas of limiting the potential of their groups communities left a permanent scar in my heart towards them. When they did things like… "oh your group only has 10mb we took off attachement"…"when you try to upload images it isn’t full sized"…"our software is bloated as hell and we want to make sure it crashes"… its been hectic trying to like them. Now that Google came along and changed the standards email and groups back to the way they were, Yahoo has been Web2.0fying themselves.

Now Who Is My Choice pick to buy AOL?
MSN ofcourse. I can see great dreams there.. :\
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