Like Bell Bottoms – What is Old is New and Hip Again

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A friend of mine was raving about MySpace and how they are holding online concerts to support artists. I replied, ”Been there, done that.” At AOL, we started that practice in 1994. We also did Live 8 and pioneered bringing in solo artists to perform online or to broadcast concerts. One of my favorites – don’t laugh – was Rod Stewart at the Apollo Theatre on the welcome screen of AOL.com. And then it was Dave Matthews in Central Park on the welcome screen. Remember that one? In 1993, we hosted Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger on the Oldsmobile Celebrity Circle. Wow – set your time machines way back for those two!

Another friend who uses a Blackberry told me there is a new app where you can use voice commands to listen and to respond to email. It is featured today in the Wall Street Journal. I replied, ”Been there, done that.” Ever hear of AOL by Phone? It competed with TellMe. I used to use it when I was driving to listen to my email. Or get sports scores. Or find a local dining establishment and make an outbound call to set up a reservation. We acquired Quack to pioneer in voice recognition. To be honest, I was the founder of AOL by Phone. I also believed in this kind of convergence between phone and PC. This was back in the year 2000. Amazing, huh?

My best friend raves about Twitter. I use it too but to me it is also “been there, done that.” Ever hear of status updates on AIM? Messaging and Peer2Peer communications were invented online by AIM and ICQ.

Yelp is in the news today too in the New York Times. ”Been there, done that” too as we pioneered at AOL Local or as we called it, Digital Cities, where local reviews from consumers and votes count. The consumers’ voice is meaningful.

My point is there are new executions of old ideas that work but many of these ideas are truly derivative of work done by AOL – in some cases - more than a decade ago. AOL deserves credit for inventing the methodologies of many of these next generation products.

0 thoughts on “Like Bell Bottoms – What is Old is New and Hip Again”

  1. Agree. There’s a lot that’s “new!” happening on The Internets that is in actuality so AOL 2000. Most of the things I’ve tracked are on the community and entertainment side (since that’s my arena). I sat a film and social media panel and ended up making this sort of myth of newness a concluding talking point because the majority of case studies being introduced were too derivative to be useful in the whole “the Internet is the wild wild west!” way that everyone is pushing lately. I don’t know that I could have had a better education than AOL coupled with access to Time Warner’s entertainment verticals. One of the questions by the moderator circled around statistics (audience reach/film marketing) that basically added up to MySpace being the new AOL (and not for a lack of copying ye olde AOL techniques). But again, this was positioned as “new!” ;-)

  4. I remember those days…the thing with myspace, even though it sucks now is that it is promoting more underground artists which I think is pretty cool even though music has just been dying away ever since limp bizkit and green day came along…i would do anything to go and watch hendrix or zeppelin…i’m sure you know about those good old days