AOL goes for outside content

AOL IS ADDING third party content, including e-mail from rival providers like Yahoo and Google and social notworking sites like Facebook and Myspace.

The outfit used to provide its own one-stop portal, but surfers are getting better at using multiple providers. This means that they will just leave the AOL site in search of email or Facebook. Now AOL wants them to use its ad-supported site as a starting point.

It is also part of a web trend that people have called the death of the Portal and since AOL is really nothing more than a portal site it has to adapt or die.

The first stage of the roll-out will see the aggregation of e-mail in a manner similar to the site's current AOL email previews. Users can click on previewed messages and go directly to their email account, or click to open a window in which they can write a message.

Then there will be a box that lets users see their friends' status updates on Facebook and a few other social sites.

AOL said that it will be refreshing its home page in October. µ

L'Inq
ABC Local