I still use AOL mail. My two primary email addresses are at an AOL.com domain and I am not afraid to admit it. And after all these years, Gmail just nudged past AOL mail in terms of users. AOL remains in the 4th spot. Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and AOL. AOL mail is quite good, easy to use and fast.
When I look at the large lead that Yahoo has, I could kick myself. All those AOL users that cancelled their paid AOL dial-up service and couldn’t keep their AOL email address, guess where they went? Yep, right to Yahoo. We fed that beast and made it huge. What a key strategic blunder. When you go check your mail, you go to their portal and generate clicks and visits and ad impressions.
But AOL still has size and heft in communications with both great positions in mail and messaging. AIM and ICQ are still the best instant messaging services out there. AOL must re-commit to making mail and messaging better. Kill the spam; tone down the ads; and start to market again. Click here to read TechCrunch on AOL mail.
As we’re on Admit It – You Didn’t Think AOL Still Had This Many Email Users, Did You? Teds Take, many of the mailing list hosting providers that I am aware of actually deliver your subscribers an email requesting them to validate before they’re included in the email list. While you might think this is a problem which may cost you some subscribers (such as those people that can’t be bothered to reply to the verification request), it is actually useful because it will help prevent cases where a person’s email is used to subscribe to a list without his or her permission. At least, you won’t be accused of spamming people.
Tone down the ads? Like… not putting 3 copies of the same ad on a page just to run up pageviews, meet monthly quotas, and milk a dumb client?