It’s begun! Last night as I checked my AOL mail, I realized it wasn’t “AOL” anymore. It had become “Aol.” AOL trashed their logo and has emerged as a publicly traded company, official as of this morning. Although it’s been a slow day at the stock exchange, AOL is throwing caution to the wind and coming out big – even Sean “Diddy” Combs, Matisyahu and Harry Connick, Jr. came out last night to celebrate the new AOL at their NYSE shindig. As a long time AOL user (it’s been well over a decade, maybe two?), the first thing I noticed was the logo. When I read about this new image that AOL had, I was definitely not sold. A long-time standing icon that I had been used to seeing, drastically changed?! Take a look for yourself at the new brand and logos AOL unveiled a few weeks ago. Certainly much more pop, but I wasn’t too keen… However, seeing it in action, I noticed that it all looked pretty good in context. I admit, I’m liking it more.
AOL web mail is different now too. An email I received this morning stated these simple changes:
1. Significantly fewer ads
2. An easier AOL Mail sign-in experience
3. A new message reading pane that helps you get through your email faster
Well, yep, I believe there are fewer ads. The new splash page for AOL mail was updated a few days ago (and again today), and yep, definitely simpler and better looking – hence, easier sign-in experience? And yep, it’s faster but I’m not sure if it’s because of that new reading pane. I haven’t quite cozied up to this new reading pane… It is nice to see my mailbox and my email next to each other so the two can be simultaneously referenced, but I also like seeing the entirety of my emails. Maybe AOL could give me a really big monitor to fix that…
Find out about the many other changes happening at AOL from Business Week.
Are you experiencing AOL’s changes as well? How long have you used AOL? How do you like the changes that are being made? Discuss it with me; hit that comment link!
