COM125 Assignment 2: History of America Online

For many people, including me, America Online (AOL) was the beginning of the internet. It was one of the first major providers to offer software that combined an internet connection, email, instant messaging, web browsing, and games along with many other features. Using AOL was the first time I had access to the internet, and the way I use the internet today is based on the features that AOL offered such as IM and email.
AOL began as Quantum Computer Services who offered only one product, an online game service for the Atari game console. In 1983, Steve Case (former CEO) joined the company as a marketing employee and was promoted to the rank of CEO in 1989. In 1991, the company released AOL for DOS (think one step before Windows.) That same year the company was renamed from Quantum to America Online.
Shortly after the release of the DOS version came the first version of AOL for Windows 3.x.The release of AOL for Windows was a big deal because it was the first online service to use software that could be run on Windows, thus making it more user friendly than the DOS version due to the fact that you could click links on the screen instead of typing commands. This was important because it made the program available to be used by more people, since it was less complex.
The first versions of AOL were still focused mainly on games but another innovation was the chat room, which allowed large groups of people to talk in real time. There were several types of chat rooms and rooms of varying topics so that people of similar interests could meet and have discussions.
By the mid-90’s, AOL had gone from an almost bankrupt company to arguably the largest internet provider ever, surpassing both Prodigy and CompuServe. AOL originally charged per hour, but in 1996 starting charging an unlimited use monthly fee of $19.99. Within a few years of doing this, over 10 million people were using AOL.
In 2000, AOL purchased Time Warner, and the two companies merged. Since then, the value of AOL has dropped significantly and reflects its falling subscription rate. This could be for many reasons, one of which is likely the use of DSL and cable internet access becoming more and more popular. Regardless of what the future has in store, the innovations of AOL in its early years certainly helped the company to leave its mark in the history of the internet.