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We are going back to AOL days. That didn’t work out so well for AOL in the long run. It’s kind of crazy to me you can’t do marketing now without at least discus

We are going back to AOL days. That didn’t work out so well for AOL in the long run. It’s kind of crazy to me you can’t do marketing now without at least discussing Google and Facebook these days. Edit: at least you knew you were the customer with AOL and paid them with clear terms for access.

inopinatus 6y ago
The comparison to AOL was my first thought also. Basically, Google have lived long enough to see themselves become the villain.
- magicalist 6y ago
  > The comparison to AOL was my first thought also It doesn't really make sense, though. The AOL thing was always things like "visit AOL keyword lord of the rings" at the end of trailers, and that would take you to the marketing site. If Chrome wanted to do that, in the example gif the keyword wouldn't be just "en.wikipedia.org" for the URL article, it would be something like "wikipedia URL" that would bring you back to the page you're on through a google search.
  - eatmygodetia 6y ago
    I'd say that it's just as common to hear "google Our Brand" as "www.brand.com" at the end of television adverts now. That's entirely anecdotal, but Google (or other search engines, but basically Google) has been for a long time the way to access sites. I see people every day searching for a brand and clicking rather than appending ".com". It's more convenient. If Google can profit off laziness, they will.
    - signal11 6y ago
      Google doesn't like you using the term "google <something>" because that opens the door towards a genericized trademark (like xerox or cellophane), but plenty of advertisers buy keywords or a phrase on Google and then use terms like "search for <keyword or phrase> to find out more" in their radio/TV/outdoor ads.
    - ClikeX 6y ago
      I tend to search the brandname if I'm not sure about what the domain is. There's quite a few Dutch brands that are either on .nl or .com. Or their brand is already in use by another company, so they've got some extra text in theirs. Or their name has a & in it and they might use "n" "en" or "and" in their actual domain.
    - Frost1x 6y ago
      I'm not sure if it's entirely laziness. Unless given a URI through some other medium, you can't expect to find a business by simply appending .com, .org, .net. there are only so many viable names in this structure and collisions are inevitable. At one time, there were less organizations online but now, almost every single business, large or small, has a web presence over viable domain name scarcity. As such, discovery service online is a necessity. Google and other search engines fill that void. Now should they completely replace domains? Probably not, at least not yet, but some other addressing scheme needs to exist if we want to be less reliant on services like Google. Personally, I just use other search engines. If I'm not finding results I fall back to Google.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - oblio 6y ago
    The thing you mentioned doesn't like it's too far fetched for the next step :-)
  - _jal 6y ago
    It isn't that Google built a faithful recreation of AOL's mechanism. The claim is that Google is in a very similar ecosystem position with very similar incentives to attempt to Own All The Traffic. I realize hindsight bias is at work, but I think I preferred Microsoft playing the Shitbag Monopolist role. They weren't passive aggressive about it, at least.
- spanhandler 6y ago
  They became the villain when they started deliberately positioning the ads on their search results screen to trick people. Which I'm sure makes them lots and lots of money but is definitely evil.
- nessunodoro 6y ago
  Google is many different companies and products, and some of them I'm so grateful for. They provide a simple product that does something magically better than the competition, don't screw with the recipe. I give them my data because I like the service. But the company-wide decision to manipulate the URL as a business strategy drains all my enthusiasm. The "U" is really important! The URL is basically a filename that you use to access the data store called the Internet. Don't take it away from me by the brute force of market dominance. I need to be sure of where I'm addressing my packets. Don't tamper with that essential construct. I use both browsers, but without Firefox, I'd be lost in the wilderness. With its recent layoffs I'm worried about the web.
  - yipbub 6y ago
    > I give them my data because I like the service. They take your data and everyone's regardless of if you want them too. That you don't mind hardly makes that better.
  - IX-103 6y ago
    Is it really a company-wide strategy to manipulate the URL? The Chrome change was based on user studies that showed that people do not understand URLs. The days of URLs as a data access key are gone. So many other things (cookies, etc) go into controlling what pages show that what was originally a 1:1 mapping between URL and content is now a many to many mapping. I'm not saying that's how it should be, but that's the web we live in now.
    - FillardMillmore 6y ago
      Do you happen to have a link to those studies?
    - RonanTheGrey 6y ago
      Doesn't matter if they understand it or not. It's the one and only barrier between you and malicious actors, or you and a monopolist. And oh look there's Google, attacking the one thing that protects the world from their ownership of the web. People might not understand how a seat belt works, it's still there and we still use them.
axaxs 6y ago
I dunno, AOL was extremely successful and people loved it. I'm not ashamed to say I liked it, having everything in the same window. Google could only hope to achieve that fluidity. Messaging, Email, and web all in one workspace. AOL really only declined because of the rise in high speed internet, and their awful business model and practices.
- bitexploder 6y ago
  The market also offered better services eventually and AOL simply couldn't keep up in every area. It slowly chipped away at their user base. Messaging was one of their killer features and apps like ICQ slowly ate them up while AOL tried to ride the same strategy of being everything to everyone into the future. I do agree it was a great experience for what it was, back in the day.
  - jhayward 6y ago
    AOL bought ICQ in the very early days of messaging.
raybb 6y ago
Do you or anyone else have a video or screenshots of what you're talking about? Or is there a specific name of the product where AOL was doing this?
- bitexploder 6y ago
  When dial up Internet was a thing, AOL was the leader in that universe. It was basically one of the earliest walled gardens out there. They had their own chat, email, etc. You accessed it all through their desktop client. You never had to leave the AOL application to experience "the internet". They of course were still providing general Internet access, so you could still fire up Netscape [and earlier browsers] and cruise to whatever websites you wanted. The Internet eventually eclipsed what AOL could offer for most people and their premium price and sometimes dodgy Internet service eventually fell by the wayside to a more open Internet experience for most users. Edit: AIM was a really popular messaging client for years after the fall of AOL as a premiere dial up Internet service.
  - flyinghamster 6y ago
    To amplify that a bit, AOL started out as a pre-Internet online service, competing with the likes of Prodigy and Compuserve. It wasn't until 1993 ("Eternal September") that they opened up Internet access to their users.
- magicalist 6y ago
  Movie trailers often had them, sometimes long after AOL had declined in relative popularity. An example I mentioned in another comment was at the end of one of the lord of the rings trailers: https://youtu.be/V75dMMIW2B4?t=143 https://youtu.be/V75dMMIW2B4?t=143 I have no idea how popular they ever were, but I'm sure there's a large segment of people that find it easier to remember and to type in "Lord of the Rings" into their computer than "www.lordoftherings.net".
- sp332 6y ago
  Instead of browsing via URL, companies could buy "AOL keywords". A user could just put in a keyword, like "dog food", and AOL would send them to a particular dog food page. In the days before good search engines, this was very convenient even though it was obviously pay-to-play. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1npzZu83AfU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1npzZu83AfU
netsharc 6y ago
It seems like we've reached that already. I've seen TV ads where they just say "Search for $KEYWORD" instead of a URL (admittedly that's more average-user friendly than making them input dots and slashes). Or posters that have [f]/someFacebookPageName or [i]/instagramUsername with the icons to indicate Facebook/Instagram.
dmitryminkovsky 6y ago
The only difference is that Google has endlessly more clout and depth than AOL and my fear is that where AOL failed, Google may succeed. With Firefox succumbing this week, this is pretty horrible. I’m not a Richard Stallman type, but I think it’s come to the point where if you have even the slightest pretense of being a “free web” person, using Chrome or a Chromium-based browser has become unconscionable. This company is playing embrace extend extinguish to a T and they are nearing the end game. I switched to Firefox this year and so can you! Just download it, install it, and then clear your Chrome history so it doesn’t feel like home anymore. Firefox is really nice and I was surprised that I don’t miss Chrome at all (except for the developer tools color picker).
- brundolf 6y ago
  I've been using Firefox/Safari on my personal devices for a couple years now, but as a web developer I unfortunately can't not use Chrome at work because of its dev tools. I try to test on other browsers when I have time - I've always made a point to push for supporting at least Firefox, as an organization - but when I'm iterating I really just need the Chrome tools. Firefox's tools always remained one or two steps behind, and now that they fired their dev tools team I assume they won't even be doing that, soon. The same goes for Google Search/DuckDuckGo. I use the latter on my personal devices, but when I'm tracking down a problem at work I just need the thing that's going to work the best.
  - dmitryminkovsky 6y ago
    I agree about DDG, but not dev tools. I used to think they weren’t as good, but they are good. And I think I’m a pretty serious dev tools user. BUT, if you want to keep using Chrome dev tools that doesn’t mean you can’t switch to FF. Just de-personalize Chrome (clear you history, sessions, settings etc) and then you’ll stop using it. Say you’re developing and open a new tab to search something on SO: you won’t be logged in on SO. Same goes with any site. So you’ll instantly realize you’re using Chrome to browse and hop over to FF instead. Seems like a lot of work but it’s not. Maybe I drank the kool aid but I now feel naked browsing with Chrome and try to avoid it as much as possible. I think the important thing is to stop using Chrome for personal browsing.
curiousllama 6y ago
AOL had a particular mismanagement problem that Google doesn't have. AOL didn't lack depth: they literally had email (@aol.com), social media (AIM), video-calling (Vonage), cloud filesharing (Xdrive) and so much more. Ultimately, they failed because (1) they were overvalued to begin with and (2) had a bad innovation model (top-down) that led them to (a) over-commit to online ads and (b) under-commit to broadband. Google is sustainable & mature, and it has a distributed innovation model that will avoid the particular mistakes of AOL. Google is reacting to the Walled Garden trend, not driving it.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  > Google is reacting to the Walled Garden trend, not driving it. I could follow you right up to that bit.
  - wnevets 6y ago
    Facebook and Apple have been driving those trends for well over a decade.
  - curiousllama 6y ago
    Yea, actually fair, bit of a non-sequitur. I meant to say that Google is well-positioned to take advantage of being a Walled Garden, and is doing so now because the model is being built out out elsewhere, both domestically (Apple, Amazon) and abroad (WeChat, Jio).
refulgentis 6y ago
This is off-topic slippery-slope hysterics that have nothing to do with the story

inopinatus 6y ago

The comparison to AOL was my first thought also. Basically, Google have lived long enough to see themselves become the villain.

magicalist 6y ago
> The comparison to AOL was my first thought also It doesn't really make sense, though. The AOL thing was always things like "visit AOL keyword lord of the rings" at the end of trailers, and that would take you to the marketing site. If Chrome wanted to do that, in the example gif the keyword wouldn't be just "en.wikipedia.org" for the URL article, it would be something like "wikipedia URL" that would bring you back to the page you're on through a google search.
- eatmygodetia 6y ago
  I'd say that it's just as common to hear "google Our Brand" as "www.brand.com" at the end of television adverts now. That's entirely anecdotal, but Google (or other search engines, but basically Google) has been for a long time the way to access sites. I see people every day searching for a brand and clicking rather than appending ".com". It's more convenient. If Google can profit off laziness, they will.
  - signal11 6y ago
    Google doesn't like you using the term "google <something>" because that opens the door towards a genericized trademark (like xerox or cellophane), but plenty of advertisers buy keywords or a phrase on Google and then use terms like "search for <keyword or phrase> to find out more" in their radio/TV/outdoor ads.
  - ClikeX 6y ago
    I tend to search the brandname if I'm not sure about what the domain is. There's quite a few Dutch brands that are either on .nl or .com. Or their brand is already in use by another company, so they've got some extra text in theirs. Or their name has a & in it and they might use "n" "en" or "and" in their actual domain.
  - Frost1x 6y ago
    I'm not sure if it's entirely laziness. Unless given a URI through some other medium, you can't expect to find a business by simply appending .com, .org, .net. there are only so many viable names in this structure and collisions are inevitable. At one time, there were less organizations online but now, almost every single business, large or small, has a web presence over viable domain name scarcity. As such, discovery service online is a necessity. Google and other search engines fill that void. Now should they completely replace domains? Probably not, at least not yet, but some other addressing scheme needs to exist if we want to be less reliant on services like Google. Personally, I just use other search engines. If I'm not finding results I fall back to Google.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- oblio 6y ago
  The thing you mentioned doesn't like it's too far fetched for the next step :-)
- _jal 6y ago
  It isn't that Google built a faithful recreation of AOL's mechanism. The claim is that Google is in a very similar ecosystem position with very similar incentives to attempt to Own All The Traffic. I realize hindsight bias is at work, but I think I preferred Microsoft playing the Shitbag Monopolist role. They weren't passive aggressive about it, at least.
spanhandler 6y ago
They became the villain when they started deliberately positioning the ads on their search results screen to trick people. Which I'm sure makes them lots and lots of money but is definitely evil.
nessunodoro 6y ago
Google is many different companies and products, and some of them I'm so grateful for. They provide a simple product that does something magically better than the competition, don't screw with the recipe. I give them my data because I like the service. But the company-wide decision to manipulate the URL as a business strategy drains all my enthusiasm. The "U" is really important! The URL is basically a filename that you use to access the data store called the Internet. Don't take it away from me by the brute force of market dominance. I need to be sure of where I'm addressing my packets. Don't tamper with that essential construct. I use both browsers, but without Firefox, I'd be lost in the wilderness. With its recent layoffs I'm worried about the web.
- yipbub 6y ago
  > I give them my data because I like the service. They take your data and everyone's regardless of if you want them too. That you don't mind hardly makes that better.
- IX-103 6y ago
  Is it really a company-wide strategy to manipulate the URL? The Chrome change was based on user studies that showed that people do not understand URLs. The days of URLs as a data access key are gone. So many other things (cookies, etc) go into controlling what pages show that what was originally a 1:1 mapping between URL and content is now a many to many mapping. I'm not saying that's how it should be, but that's the web we live in now.
  - FillardMillmore 6y ago
    Do you happen to have a link to those studies?
  - RonanTheGrey 6y ago
    Doesn't matter if they understand it or not. It's the one and only barrier between you and malicious actors, or you and a monopolist. And oh look there's Google, attacking the one thing that protects the world from their ownership of the web. People might not understand how a seat belt works, it's still there and we still use them.

axaxs 6y ago

I dunno, AOL was extremely successful and people loved it. I'm not ashamed to say I liked it, having everything in the same window. Google could only hope to achieve that fluidity. Messaging, Email, and web all in one workspace. AOL really only declined because of the rise in high speed internet, and their awful business model and practices.

bitexploder 6y ago
The market also offered better services eventually and AOL simply couldn't keep up in every area. It slowly chipped away at their user base. Messaging was one of their killer features and apps like ICQ slowly ate them up while AOL tried to ride the same strategy of being everything to everyone into the future. I do agree it was a great experience for what it was, back in the day.
- jhayward 6y ago
  AOL bought ICQ in the very early days of messaging.

raybb 6y ago

Do you or anyone else have a video or screenshots of what you're talking about? Or is there a specific name of the product where AOL was doing this?

bitexploder 6y ago
When dial up Internet was a thing, AOL was the leader in that universe. It was basically one of the earliest walled gardens out there. They had their own chat, email, etc. You accessed it all through their desktop client. You never had to leave the AOL application to experience "the internet". They of course were still providing general Internet access, so you could still fire up Netscape [and earlier browsers] and cruise to whatever websites you wanted. The Internet eventually eclipsed what AOL could offer for most people and their premium price and sometimes dodgy Internet service eventually fell by the wayside to a more open Internet experience for most users. Edit: AIM was a really popular messaging client for years after the fall of AOL as a premiere dial up Internet service.
- flyinghamster 6y ago
  To amplify that a bit, AOL started out as a pre-Internet online service, competing with the likes of Prodigy and Compuserve. It wasn't until 1993 ("Eternal September") that they opened up Internet access to their users.
magicalist 6y ago
Movie trailers often had them, sometimes long after AOL had declined in relative popularity. An example I mentioned in another comment was at the end of one of the lord of the rings trailers: https://youtu.be/V75dMMIW2B4?t=143 https://youtu.be/V75dMMIW2B4?t=143 I have no idea how popular they ever were, but I'm sure there's a large segment of people that find it easier to remember and to type in "Lord of the Rings" into their computer than "www.lordoftherings.net".
sp332 6y ago
Instead of browsing via URL, companies could buy "AOL keywords". A user could just put in a keyword, like "dog food", and AOL would send them to a particular dog food page. In the days before good search engines, this was very convenient even though it was obviously pay-to-play. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1npzZu83AfU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1npzZu83AfU

netsharc 6y ago

It seems like we've reached that already. I've seen TV ads where they just say "Search for $KEYWORD" instead of a URL (admittedly that's more average-user friendly than making them input dots and slashes). Or posters that have [f]/someFacebookPageName or [i]/instagramUsername with the icons to indicate Facebook/Instagram.

dmitryminkovsky 6y ago

The only difference is that Google has endlessly more clout and depth than AOL and my fear is that where AOL failed, Google may succeed. With Firefox succumbing this week, this is pretty horrible. I’m not a Richard Stallman type, but I think it’s come to the point where if you have even the slightest pretense of being a “free web” person, using Chrome or a Chromium-based browser has become unconscionable. This company is playing embrace extend extinguish to a T and they are nearing the end game. I switched to Firefox this year and so can you! Just download it, install it, and then clear your Chrome history so it doesn’t feel like home anymore. Firefox is really nice and I was surprised that I don’t miss Chrome at all (except for the developer tools color picker).

brundolf 6y ago
I've been using Firefox/Safari on my personal devices for a couple years now, but as a web developer I unfortunately can't not use Chrome at work because of its dev tools. I try to test on other browsers when I have time - I've always made a point to push for supporting at least Firefox, as an organization - but when I'm iterating I really just need the Chrome tools. Firefox's tools always remained one or two steps behind, and now that they fired their dev tools team I assume they won't even be doing that, soon. The same goes for Google Search/DuckDuckGo. I use the latter on my personal devices, but when I'm tracking down a problem at work I just need the thing that's going to work the best.
- dmitryminkovsky 6y ago
  I agree about DDG, but not dev tools. I used to think they weren’t as good, but they are good. And I think I’m a pretty serious dev tools user. BUT, if you want to keep using Chrome dev tools that doesn’t mean you can’t switch to FF. Just de-personalize Chrome (clear you history, sessions, settings etc) and then you’ll stop using it. Say you’re developing and open a new tab to search something on SO: you won’t be logged in on SO. Same goes with any site. So you’ll instantly realize you’re using Chrome to browse and hop over to FF instead. Seems like a lot of work but it’s not. Maybe I drank the kool aid but I now feel naked browsing with Chrome and try to avoid it as much as possible. I think the important thing is to stop using Chrome for personal browsing.

curiousllama 6y ago

AOL had a particular mismanagement problem that Google doesn't have. AOL didn't lack depth: they literally had email (@aol.com), social media (AIM), video-calling (Vonage), cloud filesharing (Xdrive) and so much more. Ultimately, they failed because (1) they were overvalued to begin with and (2) had a bad innovation model (top-down) that led them to (a) over-commit to online ads and (b) under-commit to broadband. Google is sustainable & mature, and it has a distributed innovation model that will avoid the particular mistakes of AOL. Google is reacting to the Walled Garden trend, not driving it.

jacquesm 6y ago
> Google is reacting to the Walled Garden trend, not driving it. I could follow you right up to that bit.
- wnevets 6y ago
  Facebook and Apple have been driving those trends for well over a decade.
- curiousllama 6y ago
  Yea, actually fair, bit of a non-sequitur. I meant to say that Google is well-positioned to take advantage of being a Walled Garden, and is doing so now because the model is being built out out elsewhere, both domestically (Apple, Amazon) and abroad (WeChat, Jio).

refulgentis 6y ago

This is off-topic slippery-slope hysterics that have nothing to do with the story