About the New AOL Strategy & Journals

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

Tags: AOL Journals, New AOL, Ted Leonsis, Jon Miller

Written by journalseditor Blog about this entry

This entry has 21 comments: (Add your own)

#21 Comment from drazspage
2/1/08 9:43 PM | Permalink

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?
#20 Comment from journalseditorEntry Author
8/4/06 1:17 PM | Permalink

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
#19 Comment from pattboy92
8/4/06 11:50 AM | Permalink

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
#18 Comment from fitzzer
8/4/06 10:19 AM | Permalink

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...
#17 Comment from fitzzer
8/4/06 10:19 AM | Permalink

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...

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About the New AOL Strategy & Journals